Hi:
I am actually in high school, but I wanna go to university to study industrial design, one of the universities where i applied requiere a small portfolio with a few original designs.
What would you recommend to design or redesign to present to the university?
Thanks
Damadeus
You say you want to study industrial design… then ask yourself: why? There must be some products that you want to design (furniture, electronics, toys, cars, etc.)
Once you figure out your area of interest then find a product in that category that needs redesigning or create a product that may not exist but should.
When I was in high school, I was given a mini-thesis project in my Art&Design class. It went something like this:
Research a company that I would want to work for and when I say research, I mean, asking them quesitons like: In what way is the design of your products changing… ie. instead of robust and rugged , it’s becoming more sporty-looking etc, etc.
I chose three of their existing products, drew them in perspective and hand rendered them in markers.
I used the research information from the employee and styling details from the three products to create a new product. I drew it in perspective and rendered it in marker…
Finally, I presented it to my teacher and communicated to him why I designed it the way I did. It sort of went like this: “Based on my research, speaking to so-and-so from so-and-so company, I was able to design this product for men aged whatever, because they love sports… yada, yada… I also wanted to design this product so that it reflects the line of products from so-and-so company by using details from their existing products… yada, yada…”
So, to answer your question Damadeus, this sort of exercise that I did was a little bit of design and redesign. To me, all interviewers are different, and would have different criteria when deciding who would be eligible or not… so to tell u what they would want to see, it’s hard to say… all i know is that you need to have TALENT (first off), be WILLING TO LEARN AND BE TAUGHT, and be ENTHUSIASTIC about learning about design…
Like laureng said… there must be something particular that you love sketching … or a hobby or sport that you enjoy participating in… start there and try figuring out what products you could design that would improve the stuff you enjoy doing…
If you are like me when i was in high school, and don’t care about what you design so long as you are designing something… then I’ll tell you now, that it’s a tough road ahead… 
… but what got me into ID was that I told my interviewer that I walked into one of the ID classes during an open-house week and saw the projects the students were working on. I told him that the first thing that flew into my head was “I could design something better than that”… For a good 5 min. I told him how and what I would do differently… I guess he was impressed because 5 years later, I’m still doing what I love…
Good luck and don’t give up! ID schooling is one heck of a ride… enjoy!