Although I haven’t seen as many females as males in the workplaces I’ve been, I think managers may see females as an opportunity to provide additional perspectives to their design group. One example is the consultancy Smart Design. They have formed the group Femme Den, which focuses on the female consumer. To no one’s surprise, there are a lot of female consumers.
When I would help the freshman 3D labs I would listen to the teacher ask what major they wanted to go into. Overall, many people didn’t know what industrial design was (not surprising) and out of those, most girls were saying they might go into graphic design. I wonder if there are a large group of females, who go into Art & Design school already with a mind set on other arts & design. With portfolios and majors being competitive, they put a ton of effort into these fields and may miss on the opportunity of learning more about industrial design. These are just some thoughts I have wondered based off of my own school experience.
My class graduated in 2011 with 50/50 gender ratio. Since then 8 females and 6 males have found jobs as industrial designers in either a corporation or consultancy. 3 females are freelancing in various types of design work. Other classmates have found jobs in other design fields, the arts or other fields of interest.
We have been discussing females in corporations and consultancies but what about females who are freelancing. How many females are working as freelancers in industrial design?