or engineering rejects?
I hope you have put in some thought to this question before you asked.
This is not presidential election. Most people choose their career based on what they like and not what they don’t like or can’t do, especially when ID education is more famous for its cost than value.
I cannot deny examples of “rejects”, but those are the people who drop out of the course somewhere down the road.
- you with the question, do you care to elaborate??
I think so, I mean IDers tend to think of themselves way too high. You don’t need to go to school for 4 years, blow out 90k, just to draw a piece of watch, a new shoe, a chair, cell phone, shape a styrofoam or clay, which plastic looks good, or which color looks best. Let’s get real here. If you can draw, you are an Industrial Designer, as far as I am concerned. In the end, it is the engineers and scientists that put the product to work.
dude, this is one of those closed minded comments that i’m shocked that the core77 people would even allow as a forum topic…but in the interest of free speech everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
okay, now my rant:
not everyone in design wants to be an architect. because someone chooses to go into ID doesn’t make them a arch reject. the reason i chose ID was because that’s where my passion lies. i don’t question why other folks go into architecture, or graphic design or fine art…or even basket weaving for what it matters. you do what you love, not what’s dictated to you by others…and as far as your comment of engineering rejects?? well i’ll have you know that i’ll have completed degrees in both ID and Mech Engineering by this time next year.
so now who’s the reject??
I worked with this ID guy and he kept shoving me new ideas of his design. I told him it wouldn’t work. He kept pissing me off and telling me that it would work. One day, I just gave him a great beating and I got fired from work. So, this other engineer tried to turn this product into reality. It was rejected by the company because it did not work. The designer got canned.
Now I work for another company and I design and build the prototypes.
My question is why the architects try to design products?
is this a troll?
okay ‘justathought’, I take it you are not a designer, and I am sorry you are under the impression that us designers go to school for three years, to learn how to sketch. But to move on, I just graduated with a architecture degree, and although I loved designing space, I discovered that I am more interested in working at a smaller scale, and I am probably going to move into the ID side of design. It has nothing to do with being a reject of architecture, and if you were a designer, or had any design experience whatsoever, you would understand. But since it is clear that you don’t this discussion is pointless
In my architect course, almost half of my class are rejects from the industrialdesign course!
“If you can draw, you are an Industrial Designer, as far as I am concerned.”
as far as YOU are concerned.
what do you say to someone who got an engineering degree, worked successfully as an engineer, and then went back for a BFA in ID? and who’s roommate while studying engineering was an archy? who knew what the field was about but still chose ID.
there are alot more dual-degreed IDers out there than this question assumes.
I’m sure there are a few but certainly the minority. Plenty of architects try ID and we know what we think of some of their products. (some good - some crap)
But who cares anyway.
Well, I was accepted in both ID and Architecture programs…I decided on ID because of 1) didn’t need to pay $$$ for my masters 2) ID as a profession has a more controlled pay scale and most important 3) I would be a lead designer after 3 years.
I always appreciated architecture, but it is a field which has way too many frustrations. I have many friends who are very talented architects, but it seems that they only get one part of a building and have a crazy amount of project/organizational barriers to overcome. Which unless your last name is Gehry, no construction company will assume the risks.
In short, their are probably some architects out there that are better product designers (in a deisgn sense only) than myself, but I also know that I’m a better architect (again in design alone) than many licenced architects out there.
I prefer ID, it is a more end user oriented design process…we design a product to influence/improve one persons lifestyle. Architecture, I feel, serves more as building moments for corporate america…even Gehry is guilty of this, he built Disney their second greatest monument next to their Magic Kingdom.
My two or three bits.
What a loaded question.
In my personal case I’ve known about ID at an early age. I was lucky enough to have parents who where very supportive. They have no intrest in art or design themselves but when I told them “I wanted to draw stuff” for a job at age 13, they helped me figure out what the heck that was.
It’s not just drawing pictures though, how easy a job it would be if it was. Drawing is a relatively easy skill to pick up, if that was Industrial Design every marketing person would be taking night classes at their local community college in drawing.
ID is all about the idea. Without an idea what the heck are you drawing? The ability to think, brainsrorm, conceptualize, and visualize in a way that is relvant to the way people live is not easily taught and often requires a restless mind. Once you have the seed of an idea, it is in my opinion, the designer’s resposnability to make that seed grow in the best way possible. In my case, I don’t have a dual degree, but I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know. I look for creative engineers and I show them my drawings and mock-ups, show them how I think things could work, and most importantly communicate the end goal of making the idea a reality and together we work it out.
Without good engineering, my idea would never come to market. Without design’s conumer relevant aproach there would be nothing to sell. No competive advantage for the company and no breakthrough benifits for the consumer. The iPod is an engineering feat and a design marvel. It took both to make that happen.
Some may think it an unholy marriage but there is nothing I like more than working on a strong product team where I can trust that the engineer will work his hardest at finding new ways to make things happen, and he can trust that I will do my best to think of honest innovations that mean something.
Personally I would never want to be en engineer or architect, it’s just not for me, so to answer the question, no IDers are not rejects from anything else. They are simply being what they are.
This is complete BS, You describe a stylist, a sculptor, and artist. But defiantly not an Industrial Designer. Any industrial Designer who is deserving of a job knows the materials, the properties, the manufacturing processes, and how to push them. ID is more that simply making products look good, it is balancing the needs and demands of management, manufacturing, engineering, marketing, retail cost, and the desires, preferences and needs of the consumer and targeted end-user. Many of us, my self included work with engineering and marketing from the very beginning of the process, we are all present during the planning and brainstorming, all the way through the first production run. And I do not merely design watches, pens, or phones. I am talking ceiling fans, sporting goods equipment, commercial machinery and medical devices here.
Perhaps you are the was-out. You are stuck in the box, and unable, or more likely un-willing to explore or push a technology beyond the known limits. I have the same rants you have about some old-school engineers, who believe that if it has not been done it can not be done. These are the ones I love to prove wrong, and routinely do. After all I have my ME degree, then decided that ID was more my line, since it actually dealt with the user interface, ergonomics, marketability, product differentiation, and yes styling, not just the CAD Jockie work. But then I get the impression that you are still stuck in one of those archaic development structures were ID and Eng are separated and designs are simply handed over the cubical wall…I truly feel sorry for you is this is the case. A fully collaborative and integrated development process is far more productive and fulfilling, even the engineers get to work with, talk to, and observe the users and consumers during the design and validation reviews.
It’s always obvious when you see a product designed by an architect; obvious because outside of the styling, the design is uninformed.
Michael Graves has an office in PA full of Industrial Designers slaving to create products that work.
Architects simply assemble parts originally designed by Industrial Designers to create a building. They talk a lot about “theory” and all of the pious BS behind their thinking. I laugh when I run into peep’s I met in school with Masters degrees in Arch based on theory. Most of them work as janitors today, because they have no knowledge of how to execute a “theory”.
This question was likely posed by an Arch with a career designing parking garages, who takes the bus to work everyday.
I would love to see Michael Graves design some surgical tools. I wonder how many patients would survive.
From a furniture design background, I think industrial designers are a buch of copycats. A designer designs a flip phone or a palm V or a Ipod and all of a sudden, every industrial designer has his/her copied version. How manty mouse designs do we really nedd?Shoes, for example, how hard is it to put a new design or material to a design that has a universal base.
I admire both architects and ID. However, get your egoes in check ID folks. The truth must hurt? Just listen to your answers. As if you people originated and created every designs and products out there.
Peace to both of you!
My internship taught me one thing. Some engineers can’t think beyond what’s available, so sometimes ID designers have to push them to convince them the possibilities. Some engineers also don’t see the value in what IDers do, so it’s also our job to make them understand the reason behind our decisions.
Then, of course, I have heard of high ego IDers, often fresh grads, who think they are great just because they can sketch well. They dismiss engineers and get themselves into trouble.
So now I understand why you said that. However I don’t think your impression applies to most of the IDers.
The importance of ID in a product is another thing. Others here probably have outlined a good bit of it. All in all, without ID, you will probably hate every product you see.
This applies to all of the IDers I know, I am sorry to generalize.