CREATIVE OUTLOOK: INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Offers Careers Fueled by Imagination

by James Orr, Chair of the Industrial Design Department, Cleveland Institute of Art & Design

The profession of Industrial Design, in philosophy, is as simple as it is productive: design creates identity; identity creates image; image creates success.

This simple triumvirate provides the foundation upon which exciting and inspiring careers are built. Upon closer analysis, this basic philosophy is driven by a fourth component: IMAGINATION! Virtually everything within our culture is a product of design. Or, more accurately stated, products of the design process.

Industrial designers are citizens of a peculiar nation, one with a set of principles that govern the imagination and dictate problem solving approaches, regardless of the project’s scale. What principles does the industrial designer adhere to in order to allow his or her imagination to operate at maximum efficiency? Time nor and space would allow opportunity to highlight them all, for they are infinite in nature. Here are just a few of the core principles that guide industrial designers through the problem solving process:

• Hindsight - the need to look back / to formalize

• Insight - the quality of looking inward / to analyze

• Foresight - the desire to project forward / to visualize

In addition to these three guiding principles, industrial designers utilize the following design elements when approaching projects:

• Light

• Line

• Surface

• Volume

• Form

• Value

• Color

• Texture

• Scale

• Proportion

• Contrast

• Composition

However, the single most driving force in industrial design is creativity. It is creativity that releases the imagination. It is imagination that maneuvers through the design process delivering identities that are both efficient and effective. It is imagination that inspires images that are confirming and committal. It is imagination that implements design solutions that are tailored and timeless.

Indeed, Industrial Design is a living organism that creates, recreates, and creates again, guided by fundamental design principles that are infinite in character yet finite in content. It is a simple, productive discipline that mandates order and purpose. Industrial Design is now, more than at any other time in the history of our culture, poised and positioned to provide for all those interested in establishing careers an exciting, explosive and exhilarating journey into what can only be described as another “Renaissance”, one that knows no boundaries, no limitations, no restrictions and no regret.