Not a Job, Not Just a Profession. It’s Being an Industrial Designer

PERSPECTIVE

NOT A JOB, NOT JUST A PROFESSION. IT’S BEING AN INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER.

When I was a student of industrial design at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in the mid-1960s, I and most of my fellow ID students really believed that we could change the world by design, one project at a time. We were design zealots in that we were passionate and saw industrial design as an opportunity to do good and then some. It was almost like being religious, except our gods were talented people with magic markers.

Now after 50 years as an industrial designer, I still believe that we can do good and, if not change the world, at least we can enable and serve people one project and one product at a time. My point here is that by design we are doing more than mechanical work as we create original concepts, designs, and products. When we are designing, we are attempting to advance what it means to be human as well as enabling individuals to carry out daily tasks that make life easier, safer, more interesting, more efficient, more economical, more ecologically responsible, and more beautiful.

As we consider all the issues that inform our work and our designs, we incorporate what we learn into our problem statements, concepts, and, ultimately, into our designs. This greater purpose beyond being simply practical doesn’t make us heroes or supernatural; it simply means that this work called industrial design requires an informed, broad point of view and an open mind. Our considerations include responsible and comprehensive sets of parameters that inform our processes and products. This means that our work goes far beyond simply meeting technical requirements of mechanics, materials, and manufacturing processes and understanding human psychology, ergonomics, and fit. This, to my way of thinking, makes our profession somewhat unique.

In addition to the practical issues and challenges required of invention, innovation, and product design, if we do our work well, we also give in-depth considerations to the consequences of our designs in both societal and individual terms. We start and end by considering how our designs will inform and improve daily life in general. Lofty perhaps, but true. Our work both challenges and demonstrates our ability to make insightful observations about the world we live in, to formulate unique and extraordinary problem statements, to conceptualize, to imagine, to visualize, model, test, assess, refine, and, ultimately, to resolve problems of significance and produce useful, safe, functional, understandable, and beautiful mass-produced products.

We as industrial designers, unlike in some other professions, make sure that when we design for people we consider all the people. In my work, I make sure that when I consider my audience, I include the varieties of people and work to enable all of them, as best I can, by design. That includes those of all ages, races, genders, nationalities, etc.— another example of how our work requires a broader point of view not always found in other professions.

All of this to say that I believe industrial design is more than simply a job. And it is not just a profession. Industrial design is a way of life. It is about having a rather unique and broad point of view and being able to understand what was, being aware of what is, and being preoccupied with what can be.

—Allen Samuels, IDSA allenall@umich.edu

Allen Samuels is the emeritus professor and dean at the University of Michigan.

Left: Michael DiTullo, IDSA working on a digital sketch. Image provided by Michael DiTullo, LLC.