I was always pretty good at drawing all through grade school and high school…I could draw realistic portraits, or be abstract and creative, Graffiti and tagging always interested me. Cartoons, Painting, Animation… then when I went off to college I was majoring in Studio Arts…so drawing and painting were going to be my concentration. But at UIC they make you go through Bauhaus-like foundation courses everything from photography to sculpture. And one of the classes included in the foundation program was Industrial Design. That opened up my eyes to the fact that we live in a man made world, that is to say, everything about our environment is designed by people; teams of man or woman.
So to me a life spent designing seemed more worthwhile than a life of painting and drawings ideas that people can only try to grasp. With design you leave a lot of the guesswork out of it…people have to come to terms with what you have designed…it is what it is and you can’t change that…there’s no interpretation left in the product unless you specifically designed to be broad in scope.
Design keeps me interested in life…in the reasons of why something is made a certain way. Design asks why has one restaurant decided to spend a lot of money designing custom furniture and why did another cheap out and purchase cookie cutter furniture?
Nobody on the face of the earth can now say that there is nothing designed about their environment. Homes, Cars, Food, Things, Clothing, someone down the line came up with the idea for the glasses your wearing or the laptop youre using to read this message. The font that you’re reading…Everything…Life is Design…Design is Life…Design asks Why and Why Not?
i think i posted this a while back in another thread, but here goes…
I was always interested in design, art and making things. from "graphic design in grade 3 (logos for other kids’ clubs), to putting on neighborhood art shows, to playing with legos.
i went into an art school/program from grade 7-13 (sorta like Fame, we did dance, drama, music, etc. but i majored in art). On looking for University programs i was all set on architecture, and had never hear of ID until a guy who graduated the year before came back to speak to the art major class about it. Went to the school for the march break tours and met with the program head. He put it this way, that forver changed my thinking-
“Architecture is autocratic. An architect designs a building that you live in, work in, etc. and most of the time you dont have a choice about the design of that building. ID is democratic in that the consumer (for the most part, a simplification, i know) is the one that chooses your design from the shelf, makes a conscious to buy your product and selects a design that meets their needs.”
I don’t know what about that i really responded to at the time, but the idea of being in connection to the user i think did it, and i went into ID… (i also got into the top 3 Arch schools as well, but picked ID in the end).
To this day, I thank that guy for his help, and have likewise tried to give back to chat with students and other aspiring designers to point them in the direction of ID.
and (unfortunately) in some countries you dont need a license to practice medicine either. (nothing to with you, zippy, just a standard wise-a$$ remark i couldnt help but making).
No choice. I was already playing around with design at an early age even though I did not know it. Thank goodness I found out about Industrial Design early in my senior year of high school.
I was taking this drafting class because it got me out of high school for half the day, and a teacher turned me on to this. I think I remember seeing a copy of the dwr catalog and thinking I wanted to design things that people wanted not because they needed them, but because they loved them.
you think I have starry eyes now you should have seen me then!
i love art but i just knew industrial design, but i love design since young, my goal is to be an advertising designer, but frankly speaking of industrial design i didnt noe of this course at all since last year , in our country it is very unpopular, so i guess i will be developing my interest in it, hope its not to late cox i dont have the background like some of you did esp YO’s started skeching bout futuristic stuff since young.
When I was a kid playing hockey, I would get more excited about trying on a new piece of equipment then actually playing the game! So I looked up who did hockey equipment and ended up in industrial design instead of graphic design.
I love cars. I was able to identify cars with their brand names when I was very young. I was able to discern and appreciate the subtle differences with forms, lines and proportions in designs.
But, I had no idea about industrial design until my cousin visited our family after my 1st year of college (pre-med at the time). He showed me his work and I instantly knew that’s what I wanted to do.
Literally in a week I worked on my portfolio (I had only taken advertising art in HS) and applied to Syracuse, RISD and Pratt. I got into all of them with the condition that I take some drawing classes in the Summer prior to the Fall semester.
If anything good design is about restrictions, time, money, materials, market needs, market wants, (and more)all are restrictions. The only designers i know that are “free” are ones that are very rich (so dont care if their products sell) or very poor (who are doing it purly for fun and dont care if their products sell).
