What to do with a degree in industrial design

By Rebecca Kuchar, Global Practice Lead, Strategic Research

Fears about what to study at university and which career to pursue haunt even the noblest of professions. For some of the more creative or less obvious fields, jokes abound:

Question: How do you get the [insert questionable college degree here] major off of your porch?

Answer: Pay him or her for the pizza.

But those creative and unique individuals who are thick-skinned enough to stick around and pursue their passions are being hired by some of the most notable tech companies to help humanize and write the script for more user-centered artificial intelligence, apps and software interfaces.

However, no degree is safe from scrutiny. The latest victim? Industrial design. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. BLS) released this report on the future outlook for industrial designers. In 2026, it is predicted that there will be 1,800 more industrial design jobs in America than there were in 2016. While that is a positive growth rate of 4%, it is small — and rapid advancements in technology as well as the larger, more prevalent need for more UX (user experience) and usability designers might appear to threaten the demand for industrial designers.

Concerns about economic prosperity for industrial designers have become somewhat of a punchline, too:

Question: How can industrial designers make money?

Answer: They can’t.

But that, in my experience, is simply not true. In 2017, the U.S. BLS still estimated that the average salary of a U.S.-based industrial designer was a respectable US$ 65,970. (And that is even more respectable if you are making that much money doing what you love.)

Here at INSITUM, many of our employees completed their undergraduate or graduate degrees in industrial design. And we’re happy to have them on board, utilizing their skills and showcasing their talents. The following snapshots illustrate how three INSITUM employees followed through on their careers and education in industrial design to get to where they are now.

#Employee Snapshot 1: Paulina Carlos, Associate Director, Design Researcher + Strategist

“Industrial design is valuable, because it teaches you how to think through things by making and creating.”

I always enjoyed art and making things, as well as math. My life became an intersection of those two things. Originally, I wanted to study architecture, but my dad steered me away from that early on. We had a family business that manufactured plastic parts for large companies. I wanted to do my own thing though, so I ended up going to school for industrial design. It combined the two things I was passionate about and good at.

My first job after school — and this was in 2010 — was for a branding firm in Monterrey, Mexico. My job consisted primarily of modeling fences for design prototypes. Usually, when a big fence is set up around a construction site, the design of the coming building is shown on the fence as an exciting graphic. As an industrial designer, my job was to model the fence, so they could visualize and plan the design that would go on it. While I wasn’t designing products, I was helping the firm visualize what it needed and wanted.

But it wasn’t until I did a design project for a yogurt company that I really used my skills in industrial design. The company wanted to design a mobile yogurt vending machine that could be wheeled around and taken to convention centers. But before I designed it, I had to ask Who is this for? Who is going to use it and why? I asked for funding to go to Mexico City and conduct research. I realized that what I was doing was actually human-centered design. Around the same time, I knew that I wanted to go to grad school and study this. So, ultimately, I ended up at IIT’s Institute of Design (ID) in Chicago.

In industrial design, there is no room for average. It is more about using your skills to define what to design and less about designing the thing itself. That’s where the success is. Service design is the future. You can’t think of a product as a standalone product anymore. You have to think of the product as a service. Automation may take away the need for humans to model and render. It all comes down to setting expectations. Are you happy visualizing things that others need and want? Industrial design is more about utilizing strategic sensibilities and less about technical execution. If you’re thinking about a future in industrial design, check your expectations accordingly and be excited about service design.

#Employee Snapshot 2: Fei Gao, Director, Innovation

“At the end of the day, you are doing a service for dozens of clients or millions of users.”

My industrial design journey begins with a serendipitous story. I had broken my leg playing soccer (“football” or “futbol” for most of the world). This was right before I was supposed to attend a college fair and choose a program. My parents went in my place instead. They knew I showed great interest and promise in art, math and science. At the time, I really wanted to pursue pure studio art, specifically oil painting. But they gently guided me away from that decision. At the college fair, my parents ended up talking to a man who eventually persuaded them to sign me up for a degree and job placement program that was new to the department. I studied industrial design for four years and then worked for a major car manufacturer for three years. It was a fun job, but I felt like there was too much styling going on and not enough critical thinking. It felt like that part of my brain was being underutilized. For me, industrial design was a good jumping point to take my form-giving skills and my critical thinking skills and pursue human-centered design.

I never abandoned my industrial design background. Its value is evident the most when I am involved with product innovation projects. Having been through that process, I am able to ask What is the problem and who are we designing for? The understanding I have of the manufacturing process and the feasibility funnel helps me develop ideas that have a higher success rate of surviving that journey. I have an acute sense of what is possible and what is not. Industrial design’s foundational layer also helps me partner the right way with the right people to move my ideas further down the line.

When I was involved with a malaria prevention project in Africa, my industrial design skills helped me reinvent a solution that was new to the world. We had to create this solution with no cost and zero infrastructure. We helped families hang a plastic sheet up and spray it with chemicals. That simple idea was uncovered through research, but delivered on cost, efficacy, cultural perceptions of fragrance and artwork, as well as prevented mosquito bites. Understanding the chemicals was about math and physics. And my industrial design background helped me combine the physics and presentation in a holistic solution that was desired by users. Different parts of the world are still developing, so demand for industrial designers is still growing around the globe. If I were going into industrial design now, I’d want to do a gut check and make sure I was open to and able to take advantage of global opportunities. It’s a service industry after all, and I help people do things.

#Employee Snapshot 3: Nathalie Cacheaux, Intern and Student at IIT’s Institute of Design

“Most people don’t think about this, but you need to be thrilled about industrial processes and manufacturing processes, too.”

I grew up in a crafty family that was always designing and inventing cool and clean solutions to things around the house. We invented a fun rope and pulley system that allowed us to swing from the roof of the house into the pool. We also liked to go camping on the beach, and my dad designed all of the equipment for us to do that comfortably, which included aluminum-based, specialized stakes for securing our shelter into the sand and our own proprietary equipment for showering. At that time, I knew I wanted to be an architect, but I was also drawn to graphic design. Advertising seemed like an obvious choice, but when I discovered that industrial design was a potential career option, I knew that’s what I actually wanted to do.

I’m one of the lucky ones and I got a job at INSITUM right out of undergrad. I was always more into systems approaches, and in graduate school, I did internships in product design and industrial design. I knew I would do something that used design, but the end goal would not always be a product. Industrial design provided me with a way to think strategically.

Today, within a fraction of a second, I know which path to take and how to organize objects and things. A designer is a person who organizes anything. You’re always organizing things. It doesn’t matter what it is. My industrial design foundation has allowed me to be creative when it comes to exploring frameworks. It has also taught me to be comfortable with failure.

If I were thinking about going into industrial design now, I’d ask myself how thrilled I am about manufacturing processes. If you aren’t into the systems and processes, then you probably won’t enjoy the real world of industrial design. There is a lot of installing CAD software and digitally animating and programming things. You spend a lot of time with Adobe, too. It’s not just about the object, but how you sell it. So, you need to have an aesthetic point of view, too. Sure, industrial engineers can do that, but when it comes to also making an aesthetically pleasing object, only industrial designers can do it.

For more information about INSITUM, please visit our Web site at www.insitum.com.

Rebecca Kuchar began at Stanford University as a student of mechanical engineering (the foundation of today’s d.school), but ultimately ended up majoring in English and creative writing. She later earned her MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She feels she has come full circle over the past 10 years with her work in human-centered research and design. She loves working with industrial designers.