Industrial design is concerned with the appearance and usefulness of manufactured goods. When creating products, industrial designers think about technical performance, environmental concerns, human comfort, and aesthetics.  

In DAAP's Industrial Design program, ranked first in the country by DesignIntelligence, students learn to emphasize the humanistic qualities of products of mass production with special consideration for the comfort, safety, and aes­thetic satisfaction that they may bring to the users. DesignIntelligence ranks UC's Industrial Design program as the most admired program in the country among academic Deans and Department Heads "for its co-op program, industry relations, and practical training."

On completion of these courses and two semesters of cooperative education, Industrial Design students may choose to focus on:

• general product design, creating cohesive and useful designs to solve a wide array of consumer/user needs
  
• transportation design, concentrating on the development of conceptual and technical skills related to human mobility and transportation design

Since industrial designers are employed wherever products are planned for mass pro­duction, there are ample career opportunities available.  Industrial designers are typi­cally hired as consultants or on the design staff of a corporation and work on projects including automobiles, public transit systems, human-powered and single person vehicles, furniture, appliances, house wares, electronic equipment, tools, toys, packag­ing, machine tools, medical equipment, business machines and displays.

Helpful Links

• Industrial Design Admission Requirements
• Industrial Design Curriculum
• Industrial Design Faculty

Using their senior projects as an opportunity to develop an educational curriculum that tapped into students' interest in footwear, three recent grads created the Tread Project to introduce students at Hughes STEM High School to Industrial Design.  You can read more about this exciting project here.  The designers, Charley Hudak, Vanessa Melendez, and Jince Kuruvilla, were asked to explain their process for Fast Company.

Industrial Design student Amanda Gustafson won a $7,000 prize from the California Health Association and a marketing/consulting session with IDEO for her glucose meter, Finn the Glucose Fish.