Difference between Product Design and Industrial Design

I totally agree it depends on the environment of the designer, however those industrial designers that give thought and attention to process, mass production, and assembly can find themselves earning lots of extra credibility beyond a “pretty picture” stereotype.

An invaluable industrial designer is one that can symphonize the wants and desires of the end-user with the realities and limitations of production and manufacturing. I realize that this is asking a lot from any one individual, but these are the qualities of an influential designer.

I agree with you on these points, an industrial designer with knowledge of material, process and assembly is helpful to his job,“pretty picture” stereotype can not add any values on their products.

A good designer(industrial design or product design) is who can see inside of customer and know what customer wants exactly,and more important,he knows how to present customer’s idea(maybe sometimes his own idea) in visible and understanble way,and ensure it is pissible to produce.

Anyone who honestly knows ‘exactly’ what the customer ‘really’ wants is a genius, each customer is unique, yes their are behavioral similarities but no two customers are identical.

A good designer (industrial & product) is great at critical problem solving… plus has the skills to express their solutions in a legible manner. Little more than that. I also think it is irrelevant to try to separate the difference between the 2 types of design title… they are pretty much just titles, no much more.

Good luck!

hey guys new here but this is my understanding;


Just to say, first of all this is what im studying atm; product design at swinburne uni VIC Austrailia, under the faculty of engineering, all the following is cut n paste.

Product Design is a combination of two traditionally separate fields each with its own strength: engineering with its scientific material and manufacturing knowledge and industrial design with its human centred approach to design. They have been brought together to produce a new breed of graduates who will be able to design and develop competitive products from concept to engineering validation and manufacture.

Career Opportunities:

Graduates will find employment in industries dealing in the design, development and manufacture of domestic products or the automobile industry. Their role will be primarily in the area of design, innovation, project management and manufacturing.

Graduates are eligible to apply for graduate membership of the Institution of Engineers, Australia and the Design Institute of Australia.

Program Outcomes
At completion of their program at Swinburne, graduates should be able to:

a) apply fundamental knowledge of engineering, mathematics and science;
b) use the techniques, skills and modern tools in product design engineering to practice as a product design engineer;
c) identify, formulate, solve and evaluate engineering problems;
d) design and conduct experiments as well as to analyse and interpret data;
e) identify and practice professional and ethical responsibility;
f) design and develop engineering solutions to meet desired needs within realistic economic, environmental, social, ethical, health and safety, manufacturing, and sustainability constraints;
g) apply knowledge and skills that are demonstrably in demand by the industry;
h) recognise the need for and to engage in lifelong learning;
i) function and communicate effectively in multi-disciplinary teams.

the following are excerpts from Wiki;

Product design is sometimes confused with industrial design, industrial design is concerned with the aspect of that process that brings that sort of artistic form and usability usually associated with craft design to that of mass produced goods.

Product designers conceptualize and evaluate ideas, making them tangible through products in a more systematic approach. Their role is to combine art, science and technology to create tangible three-dimensional goods.

TO sum up i would say that Product design is the blending of traditional industrial design with a more mechanical engineering and material science flavor . I think that it is a fairly recent development meant to bridge the gap between engineers and designers, buy educating new designers in a multi discipline way. in industry you will find many older designers or engineers with may years of experience that through their life have cross pollinated with the other side ( eng or des) and become more useful as team leaders who can understand and comunicate between the two fields , and most importantly follow the product all the way through its life cycle.

thats what i understand any way , please point out any errors if u feel

Well if we are mostly in the industry and are arguing back and forth about a name, quoting snippets from the net what does that say about us? they are interchangeable obviously!

I have been in the industry and worked in 2 Countries for a number of consultancies sometimes my business card read: “Industrial designer” and sometimes it said “Product Designer” my responsibilities remained the same.

I have been in the industry and worked in 2 Countries for a number of consultancies sometimes my business card read: “Industrial designer” and sometimes it said “Product Designer” my responsibilities remained the same.

My last in-house corporate business card read, “Senior Engineer”, but my responsibilities and skill set remained those of an Industrial Designer.

What I find more than a little annoying is that many industries, banking in particular, refer to their services as “products”; loan products, retirement products, etc. I realize that in marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need, but it is still seems somehow misguided. And adds to the confusion (?).

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

Exactly. Also the term ‘industrial designer’ relates more to the back end of the production process - while a product designer works more multidisciplinary and research-oriented in order to establish new concepts and new interactions with products, services and systems. The title product designer nowadays is even used for digital media developers in some companies. In the Netherlands ‘product designer’ is related to a lower education level than ‘industrial designer’ and more related to engineering, though in professional life ‘product designer’ is a more encompassing term.

Lately I’ve flipped back to using Industrial Design because I consider not only designing the products and experiences, but taking a macro approach to shaping the industry I’m working in :slight_smile: … but n the end it doesn’t matter. What you say you do is irrelevant compared to showing what you actually have done.

^^^ This is so true. Any virtual or digital thing is now called a ‘product’ too. If you filter ‘product design’ on indeed you’re going to get a HUGE range of non-ID stuff. =)

Another designer’s take on the difference between industrial design and product design.

Why is this a thing?

I honestly don’t know, but apparently people get confused. Some people like to make life a harder than it is. :slight_smile:

I completely disagree with this definition.

And I do think it is really important and it does matter what the difference is because searching for “Product Design” for jobs or articles or papers now is an absolute nightmare due to app/web developers jacking the name.

In the UK one University has a BSc Product Design and a BA Industrial Design and Technology. In the opinion of basically everyone but them they have these the wrong way round! Industrial Design is more science and engineering than degrees like Product Design which are more related to human factors (emotion, psychology, desires, aesthetics, etc, etc).

I think it would be easier to drop the Product Design usage for us due to its hijacking, as sad as that is.

To confuse things more, things are different in the UK (understatement of the century I know). Industrial design in the UK tends to be more of a highbred between ID and ME. In the US programs range from being more conceptual to being more human centered to being more aligned with ME (thought not as much as what I have seen from the UK programs) and all of them tend to be called ID.

More confusing still, some Res call themselves product designers… we should probably just scrap English and start over :slight_smile:

I have been following this thread for awhile. Currently I use Product Designer even though my degree says Industrial Designer. I do this for a pretty lame reason. Basically when I graduate I would say I was a Industrial Designer and then get the immediate question so you do factory HVAC. So this became to long of a conversation for me to explain that is nothing like what I do. I found Product Designer was easier for people to understand and lead the conversation to a point that was more manageable. Not really a deeper meaning point but this is why I choose to stay with Product Designer even though at the company I work for they call me a Category Designer. Which is accurate for what I am doing for them. But I still refer to myself as a Product Designer outside of work.

The same goes for me. If you work solely for mass-manufacturing the term industrial designer is appropriate. But today we are doing digital media, brands, 3D printing etc. so ‘product designer’ is more fitting for many designers. I also think we have to distinguish between people who do interactive applications (interactive design) and physical products (product design).

Difference is how the are been manufactured.

I wanted to comment on this thread as it is pinned and now very outdated. The term “product designer” is no longer used for Industrial designers, in the majority of cases. Now most “product designers” actually design digital products, just do a search for jobs with product designer in the keywords and you will run into 99% UX type positions. This has been happening for the past few years as UX has exploded in demand, and now I wouldnt say product designer as a term applies to ID for the most part (at least in North America). Of course there are exceptions, but that’s what they are, exceptions.

With digital fabrication technologies, industrial designers are venturing into 3D printed end products. Designs becoming increasingly data-driven, new skills emerge for the industrial designer such as generative design, AI and product customisation. Because of the complexity of these products, more and more multi-disciplinary work is done at the front end of the product creation process. Maybe if product designer is not a good term for these designers, we have to make a distinction just as the software industry does with something like ‘Front End Industrial Designer’ or even ‘Prototype Designer’.