i am not an industrial design major but i did go through a school that had a id program intergrated into the program. it seems the major difference (at least at the undergraduate level) is a focus on scale. those who studied id went in it mostly with a intention of working on product design when they graduatedwhile architects work with habitable spaces, atmosphere, buildings, and other things at a larger scale. the id program focused on issues of user interface, worked with full-size models, etc. which, at the undergraduate level, is stressed less in architecture. from my understanding, if you practice architecture you can always delve into industrial design related work (Michael Graves and Frank Gehry being a good example) and in all actuality many great architects do go into furniture design (Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis from New York frabricated their own stools for a restaurant they completed about a year or so back not to mention Alvar Alto's chairs and Eero Saarinen's furniture work from a earlier generation). If you know that your heart lies with product design (electronics, furniture, kitchen appliances, garden tools, webdesign etc etc) then I would consider Industrial Design but if you are still hazy, architecture is the all encompassing profession and will leave you more options for the future. goodluck.
I almost went into an ID program a long while back. The school I had applied to was specific enough to have specialized degrees in ID--product design, special effects, etc. If I had gone, I would have entered the 'special effects' stream (not just because I love movies) but because of all the ID fields, it's the broadest. You'll potentially be conceptualizing things like clothing, creatures, products, vehicles, and even places. Real and imaginary.
I majored in Industrial Design, undergrad. I think some of the things here are true, though a couple of clarifications:
Though it is definitely easier to go from architecture to industrial design, there are certain areas within ID that are more likely to work out. These include furniture, home products (e.g. kitchenware), environmental design, etc.
Other areas (like consumer electronics) that require significant working knowledge of complex industrial processes and human-product interaction would be harder to break into with an architecture degree and no ID experience. You could probably still do it, but given the tight job market for even the people that studied these areas you will have a harder time breaking into these areas.
Some areas (like car design) you essentially have to major in specifically from the start of your education to have any chance of getting into that particular industry. It also makes a big difference which school you go to (Detroit's CCA and Art Center College for Design were the best schools for car design when I was studying).
I can't really contribute any info on the pay difference between architects and industrial designers, but another thing to consider is the basic availability and diversity of jobs. There are significantly more architectural firms out there than industrial design firms. In architecture, you will not only have more choice in the type of office and people you work for but also the location.
On the other hand, ID gives you a pretty good set of general skills so if you're not sure whether you want to do straight ID or go into graphics, HCI, environmental design, furniture design, etc. ID will largely leave these options open for you.
To give a little perspective on the availability of jobs and different focal areas, out of the 25 people I graduated with only about 3 are actually practicing straight industrial design. Most of the rest of us either went into graphic design, human-computer interaction, furniture design, or completely unrelated fields like university admin or government work.
One last thing that I want to say is extremely subjective (though all of the above is subjective to a degree as well). I think the culture of architecture is very different from the culture of ID. While architects seem to face their own issues of demanding clients, low pay, and working with engineers/construction firms, I think this type of problem is much more extreme in ID. In many cases, you will find yourself pegged as a stylist and treated as a subordinate to the engineers and marketing people you work with. This is a very common complaint among ID people (though of course there are exceptions, as there are in any field). ID people don't seem to have figured out how to rise above this as well as architects have.
Ultimately I think you can make either field work for you, but the opportunities you'll have after school and the culture you'll be entering into are the biggest differences I can see between the two fields.
i have worked in both types of offices. the two differences that i see are scale and money.
the scale is much smaller thus the issues that need to be solved are more granular. ID needs to resovle issues of ergonomics and user interface.
when i say money i don't how much more you will make in ID. your clients in ID need a product that will make money. often, architecture is a reflection of money made. ID is mostly about reaching the masses and this is at the forefront of most of the ID clients you will get.
i also find that IDers are much more fluent sketchers than architects.
people have raised very good points about the 2 professions. I personally think that a good architect can be a good industrial designer, and vice versa.
Numerous architects have taken a stab at design things other than buildings. Think of the Barcelona chair, Le Corbusier, Michale Graves w/Alessi, Morhposis tea container and lamps, etc. I think both professions are complimentary and related within the greater context of design.
If you are still unsure which career path to pursue, I suggest you look into schools that have strong programs in both areas. Schools like RISD, Pratt, Arc Center College of Design (Pasadena), Cranbrook, Academy of Art (San Francisco), etc.........look at their websites or brochures to get a feel of what they do. That might help I think.
Another thing you might want to do is track the brothers Hani and Karim Rachid: one's at asymptote, the other's an interior designer!
money shouldn't be a big issue. If it is, I suggest looking into Medicine, Business, and Law rather than these 2 creative fields. All you need is to make a decent living in my opinion. Your intellectual rewards come when you start to design things and think and question........ahhhh, those unforgetful moments!
Come to think of it, in high school I knew my only shot at survival was going to a design school/college. When i did go to an architecture school, I'd always jump at the idea of designing an installation or an object (furniture). I guess in ID you have a little more freedom in designing, so you get to design many more objects than an architect would design buildings (unless they're a 3 initial multi-nation juggernaut with 200+ staff). Also, the production phase is usually faster, you get to see your creations come to life. These 2 factors aren't necessarily a positive thing, because like e mentioned, your object ultimately needs to sell in most cases......
barbaric, it was surprised commentary about the payscale of different tracts in the design field.
Let me know when i can pay off grad debt with "intellectual rewards". look at 30% of the posts here: they deal with the economics of living & education... it's called reality.
I know what you mean, anotherquestion, and I'm 100% with you on this one. I'm not saying that we shouldn't care about our debts and finances, for I'm sure that 9 out of 10 people will be in some sort of debt after education. That is the reality you are talking about (which I also keep checking on from my rear view mirror).
What I'm saying is, money, yes, it's important. But it should not dictate what major or area of study one should persue, don't you think? The how-much-am-I-going-to-make issue is important, but it shouldn't be the primary one. Why does one choose to be an architect?
agreed barbaric. happiness is key, and if you think financial reward alone will bring you happiness, you are pretty naive. i've been on both sides of the track, making more money than i can spend and making enough to barely pay the bills. i find that so many other factors play into whether i am happy or not besides the money.
aquesstion, that said, i think in general, you will make more money as an IDer. corps will always throw more money at something that they stand to make gobs of money off of versus something that they will not. they certainly stand to make more at a fancy schmanchy product flying off the shelves with millions of units being sold to young hip doe eyed kids than a cool building with all the latest materials and forms that may or may not leak and cause more problems.
er... again, i assumed this thread was about comparing arch & ID, which was the root of my commentary/question about $.
i don't recall alluding to $=hapiness, or using $ to decide a career path. (i don't think anyone else did, either) hence my 'tude in the last post.
anyway, johnson, what does a day in the (work) life of an ID'er look like? (are you practicing straight ID?)
that's an interesting figure with post-batchelors attrition in ID, but it was following undergrad, so no doubt those figures are similar those of other ug areas, no?
what's HCI?
Apr 30, 05 1:25 pm ·
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industrial design/architecture
I am caught between these two majors. Can anyone practicing/studying in these fields enlighten me on the major differences- benefits of each? Thanks!
i am not an industrial design major but i did go through a school that had a id program intergrated into the program. it seems the major difference (at least at the undergraduate level) is a focus on scale. those who studied id went in it mostly with a intention of working on product design when they graduatedwhile architects work with habitable spaces, atmosphere, buildings, and other things at a larger scale. the id program focused on issues of user interface, worked with full-size models, etc. which, at the undergraduate level, is stressed less in architecture. from my understanding, if you practice architecture you can always delve into industrial design related work (Michael Graves and Frank Gehry being a good example) and in all actuality many great architects do go into furniture design (Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis from New York frabricated their own stools for a restaurant they completed about a year or so back not to mention Alvar Alto's chairs and Eero Saarinen's furniture work from a earlier generation). If you know that your heart lies with product design (electronics, furniture, kitchen appliances, garden tools, webdesign etc etc) then I would consider Industrial Design but if you are still hazy, architecture is the all encompassing profession and will leave you more options for the future. goodluck.
Arch= more options which include ID
less money. WAY less money
larger scale
ID= more money
exclusivity in terms of scale (no training for designing buildings)
overall a tough choice. if you can, do BOTH.
I almost went into an ID program a long while back. The school I had applied to was specific enough to have specialized degrees in ID--product design, special effects, etc. If I had gone, I would have entered the 'special effects' stream (not just because I love movies) but because of all the ID fields, it's the broadest. You'll potentially be conceptualizing things like clothing, creatures, products, vehicles, and even places. Real and imaginary.
I majored in Industrial Design, undergrad. I think some of the things here are true, though a couple of clarifications:
Though it is definitely easier to go from architecture to industrial design, there are certain areas within ID that are more likely to work out. These include furniture, home products (e.g. kitchenware), environmental design, etc.
Other areas (like consumer electronics) that require significant working knowledge of complex industrial processes and human-product interaction would be harder to break into with an architecture degree and no ID experience. You could probably still do it, but given the tight job market for even the people that studied these areas you will have a harder time breaking into these areas.
Some areas (like car design) you essentially have to major in specifically from the start of your education to have any chance of getting into that particular industry. It also makes a big difference which school you go to (Detroit's CCA and Art Center College for Design were the best schools for car design when I was studying).
I can't really contribute any info on the pay difference between architects and industrial designers, but another thing to consider is the basic availability and diversity of jobs. There are significantly more architectural firms out there than industrial design firms. In architecture, you will not only have more choice in the type of office and people you work for but also the location.
On the other hand, ID gives you a pretty good set of general skills so if you're not sure whether you want to do straight ID or go into graphics, HCI, environmental design, furniture design, etc. ID will largely leave these options open for you.
To give a little perspective on the availability of jobs and different focal areas, out of the 25 people I graduated with only about 3 are actually practicing straight industrial design. Most of the rest of us either went into graphic design, human-computer interaction, furniture design, or completely unrelated fields like university admin or government work.
One last thing that I want to say is extremely subjective (though all of the above is subjective to a degree as well). I think the culture of architecture is very different from the culture of ID. While architects seem to face their own issues of demanding clients, low pay, and working with engineers/construction firms, I think this type of problem is much more extreme in ID. In many cases, you will find yourself pegged as a stylist and treated as a subordinate to the engineers and marketing people you work with. This is a very common complaint among ID people (though of course there are exceptions, as there are in any field). ID people don't seem to have figured out how to rise above this as well as architects have.
Ultimately I think you can make either field work for you, but the opportunities you'll have after school and the culture you'll be entering into are the biggest differences I can see between the two fields.
i have worked in both types of offices. the two differences that i see are scale and money.
the scale is much smaller thus the issues that need to be solved are more granular. ID needs to resovle issues of ergonomics and user interface.
when i say money i don't how much more you will make in ID. your clients in ID need a product that will make money. often, architecture is a reflection of money made. ID is mostly about reaching the masses and this is at the forefront of most of the ID clients you will get.
i also find that IDers are much more fluent sketchers than architects.
people have raised very good points about the 2 professions. I personally think that a good architect can be a good industrial designer, and vice versa.
Numerous architects have taken a stab at design things other than buildings. Think of the Barcelona chair, Le Corbusier, Michale Graves w/Alessi, Morhposis tea container and lamps, etc. I think both professions are complimentary and related within the greater context of design.
If you are still unsure which career path to pursue, I suggest you look into schools that have strong programs in both areas. Schools like RISD, Pratt, Arc Center College of Design (Pasadena), Cranbrook, Academy of Art (San Francisco), etc.........look at their websites or brochures to get a feel of what they do. That might help I think.
Another thing you might want to do is track the brothers Hani and Karim Rachid: one's at asymptote, the other's an interior designer!
good points barbaric, but to strengthen your point about the rashids, karim is more of an industrial designer than interior.
e- thank you! I meant industrial designer! Dunno how I ended up writing interior designer!!!
at least it wasn't interior decorator
*shudder*
Arch=
less money. WAY less money
ID= more money
kyll, is that seriously true? how do you know that? surprised.
on a related note, how competetive is the job market?
money shouldn't be a big issue. If it is, I suggest looking into Medicine, Business, and Law rather than these 2 creative fields. All you need is to make a decent living in my opinion. Your intellectual rewards come when you start to design things and think and question........ahhhh, those unforgetful moments!
Come to think of it, in high school I knew my only shot at survival was going to a design school/college. When i did go to an architecture school, I'd always jump at the idea of designing an installation or an object (furniture). I guess in ID you have a little more freedom in designing, so you get to design many more objects than an architect would design buildings (unless they're a 3 initial multi-nation juggernaut with 200+ staff). Also, the production phase is usually faster, you get to see your creations come to life. These 2 factors aren't necessarily a positive thing, because like e mentioned, your object ultimately needs to sell in most cases......
barbaric, it was surprised commentary about the payscale of different tracts in the design field.
Let me know when i can pay off grad debt with "intellectual rewards". look at 30% of the posts here: they deal with the economics of living & education... it's called reality.
I know what you mean, anotherquestion, and I'm 100% with you on this one. I'm not saying that we shouldn't care about our debts and finances, for I'm sure that 9 out of 10 people will be in some sort of debt after education. That is the reality you are talking about (which I also keep checking on from my rear view mirror).
What I'm saying is, money, yes, it's important. But it should not dictate what major or area of study one should persue, don't you think? The how-much-am-I-going-to-make issue is important, but it shouldn't be the primary one. Why does one choose to be an architect?
agreed barbaric. happiness is key, and if you think financial reward alone will bring you happiness, you are pretty naive. i've been on both sides of the track, making more money than i can spend and making enough to barely pay the bills. i find that so many other factors play into whether i am happy or not besides the money.
aquesstion, that said, i think in general, you will make more money as an IDer. corps will always throw more money at something that they stand to make gobs of money off of versus something that they will not. they certainly stand to make more at a fancy schmanchy product flying off the shelves with millions of units being sold to young hip doe eyed kids than a cool building with all the latest materials and forms that may or may not leak and cause more problems.
er... again, i assumed this thread was about comparing arch & ID, which was the root of my commentary/question about $.
i don't recall alluding to $=hapiness, or using $ to decide a career path. (i don't think anyone else did, either) hence my 'tude in the last post.
anyway, johnson, what does a day in the (work) life of an ID'er look like? (are you practicing straight ID?)
that's an interesting figure with post-batchelors attrition in ID, but it was following undergrad, so no doubt those figures are similar those of other ug areas, no?
what's HCI?
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