Industrial Design Masters Degree
Though nothing beats experience, advanced tertiary qualifications are always a bonus when you’re looking to edge out your competitors for the higher salaried positions. This page will look at the things to consider when seeking to do an industrial design masters degree. An industrial designer can loosely be described as a cross between an artist and a mechanical engineer. They are concerned with both function and form and the relationship between a product and it user. Without getting too fancy in respect to definitions, industrial designers are about delivering innovation in the form of a three dimensional product that can be produced in quantity. Industrial designers will tend to work in unison with marketers and other engineers. The field of industrial design is a constantly changing one because the design process needs to incorporate and reflect changes in society and the environment. Design can no longer simply be viewed as a professional service, but rather as a means of connecting our interests and values to a social framework. Advances in technology play a large role here because they bring about a consequent change in behavior. For instance a phone is no longer a device that lets you call somebody else, but a device with which you can also send emails, play games, take pictures, store files etc. The fact that we are now able to process and share information more easily creates a whole new raft of design challenges – specifically industrial designers need to work out how they can best match technology to the needs and wishes of users. The environment will also have a large bearing on contemporary industrial design as designers now need to design products whose use will not have an adverse effect on the environment. Graduate programs in Industrial Design tend to focus on the technical aspects of the items on which they are working but will also address issues such as ergonomics, safety and manufacturing economics. Graduates with a masters or PhD degree in industrial design can enter careers as multimedia designers, industrial design specialists, chief designers and more. Industrial design masters programs will usually be 2 years in length (assuming the student already has a bachelor’s degree in art design field or similar. There are some institutions that will offer 3 year courses for students from disciplines other than art or design which are intended to provide a pre-requisite year of basic design skills, concepts and competencies which will then allow students to go on and complete the 2 year Masters In Industrial Design program. Irrespective of which institute students choose to pursue their masters degree in industrial design, at the end of their studies they can expect to be equipped with the conceptual processes, creative tools, management strategies and research skills for innovation in design, including an understanding of the impact of information and communications technologies on contemporary design. Demographic change, new materials and manufacturing techniques, social and environmental sustainability, commercial factors, consumer knowledge, design ethics, systems and services design, and entrepreneurial activity will all also be explored with a view to creating products, systems and services for the future. There is also the capacity for students to pursue their masters in industrial design degree online. Capella University, American Intercontinental University, Penn Foster College and University of Phoenix are all examples of US educational institutions who offer online industrial design master degrees.
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