What Female Educators Have to Say About ID
The fall semester for industrial design programs will begin soon, and we wanted to hear from female professors on the state of the industry. If you are thinking about studying ID, or are already in a program, we hope these perspectives will be beneficial for you. We sent questions to educators asking them to share their thoughts with you. Despite the fact that they all teach at different schools across the US and came into academia from different pathways, their messages are consistent across the board.
Why would you encourage women to study Industrial Design?
There is a huge variety of areas to focus on when you approach product design. “Industrial design is a field for people who are insatiably curious and love creating in 2D and 3D,” says Betsy Barnhart, Program Director of Industrial Design & Assistant Professor at The University of Kansas. “ Your focus can be function, style, materials, or innovation driven. Often it is a combination of all of the above. Industrial designers are also User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) designers and they research and design how people move through and interact with products or digital spaces and apps.” Amy Majerowski Product Design Faculty at Milwaukee Institute of Art adds that designers determine “form, size, features, colors, textures, functionality, interface, and so on, to ensure the products are thoughtful, well made and fit the users' needs!”
When studying industrial design, you learn fundamental design thinking skills that have broad applications in career and life. For example, learning to ideate, filter, and create solutions while considering many vantage points. Lara Goulart, Lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology, says that “by acquiring design reasoning, students' lives are impacted by the way they approach problems, make decisions, and analyze products.” For example, you will think through how people purchase products, the product life-cycle, and its social impact.
When you are in design school, you have a lot of fun flexing creative muscles. We are attracted to this field because we are inherently creative and industrial design gives you so many outlets to express that. Sketching, building, computer modeling, and storytelling are all forms of creative expression that you will grow your skill in while in school. “Industrial design is a great field for anyone who likes to continually learn, for folks who enjoy connecting with others, and for those who relish flexing their creativity,” notes Carly Hagins, Assistant Professor of Product Design, Richmond Institute for Design and Innovation at Western Michigan University.
“Industrial design is a great field for anyone who likes to continually learn, for folks who enjoy connecting with others, and for those who relish flexing their creativity”
Everything we live with can be impacted by an industrial designer, which means you can work on many different types of products throughout your career. Consumer goods, appliances, vehicles, physical spaces, and so much more. Check out some of the jobs we highlighted in a previous blog to get a sense of the vast landscape of what you can do.
Because it takes collaboration to develop a product, as a designer you will get to work with teams of talented people. You may even work with people internationally and could get the chance to travel to work with them in person. Visiting factories, meeting with teams for a brainstorm, and collaborating on the activities that it takes to get a product into production are just some of the things you might do. Even while in school you will have these opportunities. Barnhardt gives the example of '“students working with professional footwear designers from across the globe designing products in a VR space, allowing them to learn how to produce their designs. Other students are working on an autonomous drone project with partners in Guinnea, Mexico, California, and Michigan, to solve a life saving problem on how to deliver highly perishable and expensive anti-venom to rural Africa on demand.” How cool is that?
The overwhelming response from educators is that your career will bring you a sense of purpose because your thoughtfulness in design will improve the lives of users. Elham Morshedzadeh, Ph.D., Presidential Frontier Assistant Professor for Healthcare at University of Houston, Gerald Hines College of Architecture and Design adds that “designers are taking more lead/key roles in creative industry, policy, and strategies. That's an exciting opportunity that comes with a great deal of responsibility for design graduates and subsequently design educators.”
“Although advances have been made to design for inclusivity and to address the data gap to an extent, there is still a ton that needs to be done”
Why does Industrial Design need women?
The responses from educators were unanimous that the field of industrial design needs women to bring more diverse points of view to the development of products, especially since women are the primary purchasers of products. Majerowski sites that “in fact, women drive 70-80 percent of all consumer purchasing, through a combination of their buying power and influence.”
Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, Associate Professor Industrial Design at Iowa State University says that “We need more women to design products, services, and systems that are truly usable and meaningful beyond the standard 5-95th percentile male target group.” She adds that “although advances have been made to design for inclusivity and to address the data gap to an extent, there is still a ton that needs to be done.”
When you study industrial design you learn methods for having empathy for a variety of users. Having a diverse group of designers using those tools together is even better for equitable product outcomes.
What are you most excited about in the future of ID education?
You can tell that an educator is in the right field when they say what gets them most excited is to see the passion in each new class of students. “The future always holds a new cohort of students eager to learn how to make dreams become a reality,” says Majerowski.
What inspires the educators is that the students have the motivation to take on big issues. Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, Professor of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute and Founder of Interwoven Design explains, “In the “think tank” of the classroom these ideas can be workshopped free of the economic constraints that exist in the professional world. I’m excited about the future of ID to meet this challenge through educating young and fearless designers who aren't afraid of tackling big and difficult problems.”
Paepcke-Hjeltness summarized nicely what many of the educators expressed as their favorite aspect of teaching. “We plant the seeds of what’s possible with every student who comes through our programs so they can become the designers who will make a positive difference in the world.”
Goulart has an interesting perspective on why academia being at the forefront of the field is so special. “We are transitioning from a general-market perspective to considering individuals in their singularities. Technology and society have advanced to a point that embraces projects that look into empathy, diversity, inclusion, and sustainability. We don't have to educate students to fit into the traditional industry anymore. Now we nurture change-makers that will bring their voices, identities, and perspectives into their workplace.”
Barnhart builds on this noting that “The world has never been as accessible as it is now.” By that she means that students have access to global relationships and can collaborate with technology that removes so many barriers.
“We don’t have to educate students to fit into the traditional industry anymore. Now we nurture change-makers that will bring their voices, identities, and perspectives into their workplace”
It is an advantaged time to be an industrial design college cohort. We can tell that the professors know this. Hagins reminds us that getting an ID education is about the people you will go through that experience with. “Each class has its own character, and it’s always fun to get to know them.”
It is important for professionals to be a bridge to the student and educator community. Majerowski encourages “the WIID community to give back by teaching a class or being on an advisory board to guide design education. The industry/education connection is crucial in ID because it is a hands on profession and we need female ID professionals helping to improve work being done in the classroom.”
Thank you to all the educators who contributed their perspectives and experience to this post and share their passion with their students every day.
Inspirational images in this post were created using Midjourney using prompts related to the themes in this post.