Industrial design – an applied art, about aesthetics and usability of products. Design aspects specified by the industrial designer may include the overall shape of the object, the location of details with respect to one another, colors, texture, sounds, and the use of the product ergonomics. The industrial designer may specify aspects of the production process, choice of materials and the way the product is presented to the consumer at the point of sale. The use of industrial designers in a product development process may lead to added values by improved usability, lowered production costs and more appealing products.
Industrial Design – By the middle of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution had helped produce an expanding economy, a growing transportation system, and new, large urban centers around industrialized areas. These brought huge demands for more and better factory-made goods.
“Design is the appropriate combination of materials in order to solve a problem.” —Charles Eames
Sustainable innovation is a process where sustainability considerations (environmental, social and financial) are integrated into company systems from idea generation through to research and development (R&D) and commercialisation. This applies to products, services and technologies, as well as new business and organisation models
- Delft Design Approach (video 2:01) – In our daily lives we use hundreds or even thousands of products and services. They are all designed, some with more success than others. The ‘Delft Design Approach’ is a structured approach that helps designers to tackle complex design challenges: from formulating a strategic vision, to mapping user behaviors, their needs and their environment, to developing and selecting meaningful proposals for products and services.
Meet the people in Industrial Design
What’s the problem?
Accidental Orange Sissors – In this story you’ll read how an iconic product, one with more than one billion units sold, came into existence through a combination of careful design planning, manufacturing knowledge and serendipitous happenstance.
That’s engineering
- Research and Development (R&D) Often shortened to R&D (pronounced “R and D”), Research and Development is the general term for investigations and experiments to either try to develop a new product or improve an existing ones. You might say that a particular project is “still in R&D.”
Engineering ideas
- aesthetics, usability, ergonomics, production process, materials, product development process
Do It
Challenges for you to work on…
- find examples of products that show great industrial design, or are considered to be well designed? What are the qualities that determine good design? What specific features contribute to the overall design?
engineering 4 kids 