ID right for me? what's it all about?

Design Discussions students and schools
1

Hello everyone

My name is Trevor, one of my many, but new alias’s is ideallyst. I’m 18 and a freshman in college, I’m from san Diego California/Las Vegas but I now live in Fort Wayne Indiana, and I attend IPFW(Indiana-Purdue university fort Wayne) majoring in Computer Engineering. I chose this because in December of 2007 I got into computer hardware like mad. However, recently, over the past 4 months-ish, ive realized that CE, isn’t for me, and I don’t think ME really is either. I’m big into thinking of designs, I spent everyday my senior year in English just drawing a picture of some design idea I had, from the layout of my room I wanted, to a new phone. I love it, but I didn’t know what I could do with that. I never thought of design in high school mainly because of lack of knowledge.

I love economics, and that means I also like marketing. Ive been thinking marketing would be a good choice because:

1). Its offered pretty much at every school
2). I can take it anywhere
3). It runs closely with product design/conceptualization
4). Strong economic backbone

And as of June of this year, I fell in love with Steve Jobs, and more importantly, Apple.
So my major dream is to one day work at apple. I then recently saw there was a board member deemed “SVP of industrial Design”
Wikipedia was never used so much…
For hours I researched industrial design.
I fell in love with it, I think.
I love marketing, I don’t really like math (hence the engineering questionability). At least not trig. I love to draw; I can enjoy CAD, pending on what I’m doing in it. And recently like I said, I love industrial design, I think its ‘it’, based on the fact it’s a major part at apple, and evidently, from what I can tell, a big part anywhere. And I don’t know how close marketing and design run in close.

I understand my point(s) of this post is needed quickly, so ill get to it.

-No where in Indiana does a school offer Industrial Design. I also see it’s a BFA, not a BS, which kind of worry’s me.

-I see University of Illinois at Chicago offers it, anyone go/went here? Or heard of it? What about those art institutes? Are those good? Any accreditation I need to look for? And I saw this ‘academy of art university” in San Francisco, what about this school? Is it good?

-What exactly does an Industrial designer do? I want to think of a product, or see what something needs, then design it, I’m also interested in minoring in marketing to help with understanding market needs and what not.

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  • What kind of math is needed for ID? Basic Calc? and what about chemistry? I know an ID would need to be a materials expert, so would chemistry fall in line with that?
  • Does ID have a good outlook?
  • Average pay?

I think that’s all I have for now, I appreciate those who took the time to read this, I really could use the help, the reason for so much background info is just to help you better understand who I am, I guess.
I look forward to having for fun on this forum.

Thanks for all the help,
Trevor/ideallyst

2

welcome to Core77,

you actually sound like an ideal ID - interested in everything and loves to draw.

Go to http://www.idsa.org and a lot of your basic questions will be answered.

Check out Perdue and Notre Dame, both have ecellent ID programs, make a point to talk to lots of faculty and students not just the ones conducting the tour.

3

wow, i wanted to go to purdue last year for engineering, but i never thought that they would have industrial design, so i never looked. and as it turns out, they do. wow. thanks for that one no_spec =]

4

I started in CE, then switched after 1 semester and never looked back. I had artistic talents, but since I was starting at the beginning anyway and extending my schooling by 1 semester, I really wasn’t worried about it. You could do the same thing from the way it sounds.

Start taking core drawing/etc courses.

5

Dude. Become a designer. It is like playing God.

This is an example of why I should motivate myself to go speak at my former high school. I too, NEVER even heard there was such a thing as Industrial Design until about 8 years ago. I’ve been an IDer for 3 years now, and I had to switch careers from Art Direction and marketing when I was 31. If someone would have showed me this sooner I would be another Ross Freakin’ Lovegrove by now!!! ( I know thats a little smug I’m just being funny)

You sound like the perfect canidate. Just don’t steal my job 3 years from now , PUNK.

6

I forgot to mention…Being a designer can get you laid bigtime. Once you point to an inanimate object and tell a girl “That’s my design” you instantly become Mr. cool interesting smart guy. Trust me.

Also every other Industrial Designer you meet will 9 times out of 10 be a cool motherfucker. Its a fun business. Designers always seem to stay kind of young looking because we play with toys like CAD all day and draw pictures in between deep daydreams. (Bart told me that and I think its true)

7

haha. cool. thanks for all the replies.

but what sort of math/chem is required for ID?
i know different universities require different things, but generally. is it math intensive? or chemistry…

8

the math/science can vary from non at all to introductory only.
engineering, research methods, and marketing are all more pertinent.

9

Seriously, it’s all unicorns and rainbows, just ask zippyflounder.

Good luck, you’re gonna need it :wink:

10

ID is the coolest profession around. I’ve been doing it for 13 years and love every minute.

Check out the IDSA.org for their list of schools. Notre Dame is the obvious choice in Indiana but you should also look at pure-play Art & Design schools.

11

ok cool. thanks for all the help guys =]

question:
so purdue is gunna be the school of choice for me, and im pretty big on football. as is purdue.

can anyone vouch for purdues ID program, and has anyone tried doing football and ID at the same time?

my gripe is that im a freshman right now but at a school without ID, so ill be a sophmore a year behind =[ and worried football could slow that down even more. im sure it would, but ive always wanted to play college football.

any input as of course appreciated =]
thanks

12

Perdue has a solid program, I work with an alum and he’s great - but, school is what you make of it, you got to put in the hours in studio.

Coincidentally I work with another guy who played football freshman year at another school, but dropped it because ID is more: fun/addictive/ more demanding/ the list goes on…

13

Seriously, it’s all unicorns and rainbows, just ask zippyflounder.

Good luck, you’re gonna need it :wink:[/quote]

I have no idea what that means. Are you talking about the skateboard?

Anyway, I’m borderline retarded when it comes to math, but it hasn’t stopped me from selling my designs in Target, biatches! :wink:

And how did you know about my unicorn concepts?