Does anyone here study or work in product design? I asked on /sci/ but they were all cold, hard engineering and /g/ only seems to do EE or CS so maybe it's a /diy/ kind of degree. I got interested because I found out that all my attempts at designing a product to sell is an actual career field called surprise, surprise product design. I could do engineering but product design seems a) more fun and b) more geared towards self employment plus it's available at my local university whereas engineering isn't. However engineering seems to have more jobs and pay more. Thoughts?
Meme degree.
>>948851
that is not a real degree.
either study mechanical engineering or industrial design.
>>948851
>it's available at my local university whereas engineering isn't.
move
Product design is weird as shit. It can either take weeks for designs or a day or two depending on how large of a scale your project is. You have your constraints, functions, cost, material, production and a lot of other things. In a good team, everyone sees to the design and assesses all possible problems and whatnot.
It is absolutely useless without any engineering knowledge, and should the designers refuse to adapt and learn from anyone with the knowledge, the team will not work. I know that people try to stretch materials to their limit, but we have safety and other ratings and standards to adhere to, bringing most goals closer to earth, but the designer needs to know this or else a product can blow up in the user's face.
As a designer, you can design things as much as you want, but nobody will be willing to produce your product until you provide numbers from calculations. You also have to make sure that you reach the intended consumer market.
Best to study mechanical and work from there. Having some knowledge of material sciences will help a lot, as you are dealing with physical design.
>>948851
I actually have a deep seated hate for product designers. It is ultra rare that any product is properly designed. A lot of the time it seems the person who designed it didn't actually ever try to use the design at all.
I highly suggest that what ever you design, you test it fully in the real world, in the exact use it is intended for. Then try to perform the same tasks with the product wearing leather work gloves. If your product passes the work glove test, you have a solid product. Because that is the harshest test you can give it.
>>948908
I actually know the feel, a lot of things on Kickstarter are stupidly designed and it makes my blood boil. However I assumed (hoped) that these people didn't have product design degrees. My OP pic is an excellent example. propeller hoverboards are never going to be good but they could have made a decent go of it with 30" propellers or similar but they instead made the baffling decision to go with what looks like 90mm ducted fans. What were they thinking?
>>948891
Can you do design work straight out of university if you choose mechanical engineering? One of my fears is that I'll have to spend the first 10 years of my career doing maintenance work. The other big fear is that it will be autistic. I've been in autistic environments before and it makes you want to blow your brains out.
> nobody will be willing to produce your product until you provide numbers from calculations
Funny, I always calculate before I design. maybe I am meant to be an engineer
>>948870
I don't care about prestige, all I care about is getting a good job.
>>948946
yeah that's the point. nobody is hiring "product designers" that's not a real degree. wont even get to the interview stage. which is why you need industrial design or engineering to do what you want to do. like for example, LEGO only hires people with industrial design degrees to build their showcase pieces.
>>948947
What is the difference between product design and industrial design?
>>948949
>product design
>"Due to the absence of a consensually accepted definition that reflects the breadth of the topic sufficiently"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_design
who knows what the fuck it means? it's a pretty edgy name though. it's an abstract kind of feel.
>industrial design
>"Industrial design is a process of design applied to products that are to be manufactured through techniques of mass production"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design
some places use the name interchangably. product design is clearly some shitty abstract art course aimed at considering many different factors in the design of a product. like big keys if its for old people. while industrial design is making a product such that you can deliver resources to a workshop and with a basic set of tools common to that industry they can quickly churn out the desired product.
>>948953
cont.
here is an example of industrial design. you learn how to work the materials, how shit is made in a factory, how to prototype it and present it to an investor.
this lemon squeezer was designed by the french artist, philippe starck. its a 50s space ship shaped object. an elegant piece of art everyone can own in their own home. functional and elegant. cheap too because its mass manufactured and just keeps working. this is an example of how art crosses over into mass production.
now product design will be more discussing the feel and ease of use of a cars door handle or the texture of a touchpad on a laptop and how receptive old people will be to that particular texture and if they wont buy it based on that. or how brightly colored the door handle needs to be in order for someone to find it at night.
>>948956
forgot pic
>>948946
>One of my fears is that I'll have to spend the first 10 years of my career doing maintenance work.
And doing that is good for you. Learn from others before trying to do something on your own.
And now a lyrical episode.
The band: Engineering Terrorism
Song title: A national socialistic call
It's a sunny day around
Heavy boots march on the grounds
Pack of wolves, engineering hounds
Where you fucking designers are!?!
The smell of designers makes me spit
Beat beat beat them fucking beat
The planet cant stand motherfuckers feet
They must eat their own shit
Shoot the designers, shoot them fucking all.
A national socialistic call.
Pull the trigger, shoot subhumans all.
A new order for a new world,
STEM power!
>>948851
Product Design is this sort of bullshit.
It's like an architect compared to an engineer.
They come up with something trendy and if they are a good designer, it might even have some sound engineering principles worked out.
If they are a popular or trendy or shitty product designer, the product might be outright impossible with current technology, but sounds really cool to some people. Like a lot of shit on kickstarter is product design shit with no crunch behind it. Like this fucking toaster.
Be a mechanical or electrical engineer. Build cool shit
>>948946
you can start designing now OP. right now.
what do you want the degree for?
industrial design is in the arts department and you mostly spend the first 20 years of your career begging for public art grants. then you weld up some ugly sculpture and sit it in a park and go to conventions trying to sell some shitty thing you made that flashes an LED.
mechanical engineering gives you the skills to start to learn to build things.
engineering is kinda the reverse. you graduate, start actually designing things and engineering then after 10 years you are management and just help the new kids with their questions when they get stuck.
>>948962
But 10 years....
>>949011
Well as I said I practically do product design already and it doesn't feel like bullshit. My drone is normal and not weird and my soap is well...soap. Maybe you're right though, academic art tends to be BS. Oh well If my businesses flop then I suppose I'll do mechanical engineering. Seems so dry though.
>>949021
>what do you want the degree for?
If business succeeds I thought that doing product design may get me contacts. If business fails I need money, engineers are in demand I've heard.
>>948851
It sounds like you'd rather be an inventor. Who thinks up cool stuff, and then makes it yourself (or has it made).
In the USA at least,,,, the problem with getting a product design degree OR a chemical/electrical/mechanical engineering degree is that a lot of all those jobs has gone to the same places that the 'boring low-pay factory jobs' went: to China, because those people are most valuable if they are co-located near the manufacturing plant. There is still a lot of people working as engineers in the USA, but proportionately that number has declined from years past. And it's not likely to go back up anytime soon.
>>948946
>My OP pic is an excellent example. propeller hoverboards are never going to be good but they could have made a decent go of it with 30" propellers or similar but they instead made the baffling decision to go with what looks like 90mm ducted fans. What were they thinking?
RC airplane ducted fans are already mass-produced, and aren't big enough to chop your limbs off....
>>948953
>product design is clearly some shitty abstract art course aimed at considering many different factors in the design of a product. like big keys if its for old people. while industrial design is making a product such that you can deliver resources to a workshop and with a basic set of tools common to that industry they can quickly churn out the desired product.
A lot of the Apple products are excellent product design, but were/are terrible from an industrial design standpoint----but, the product design is what draws a lot of buyers. Is that a failure?
>>949033
>It sounds like you'd rather be an inventor
Hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately that career hasn't existed since the days of Edison. Honestly he is the only person I know who managed to make a career out of it. The rest seemd to be nutters in their sheds till their wives forced them to give it up. I don't want to end up like that.
>RC airplane ducted fans are already mass-produced, and aren't big enough to chop your limbs off.
I don't even think they did it for safety reasons, it's not hard to put a shroud on a large propeller, I think they did it just so it looked like anti-gravity at a distance (if you wear ear muffs). Otherwise RC ducted fans are a terrible choice, high disc loading.
>A lot of the Apple products are excellent product design, but were/are terrible from an industrial design standpoint
Are Apple products hard to manufacture or something?
> that number has declined from years past. And it's not likely to go back up anytime soon.
I'm UK, is it shit here too? If you can't even get a job with engineering what should I do?
>>949033
that's bullshit. you can always get a job as an engineer. it may be a shit tier government job. but it will still be a high paying job. thing is that private companies poach all the engineers after their two years from graduation it takes to become a chartered engineer. so they dont stay long.
engineering will pay the bills and you will then be able to afford an acceptable workshop to design to your hearts content. also many remote mining jobs and whatnot.
>>949033
u wot m8?
he's a fucking knight for that.
they're fantastic industrial design. they set THE standard for what a mobile phone should look like. every manufacturer has copied the design.
the very shape, look, layout and style of the iphone is iconic and synonymous with a smart phone. this is good industrial design. its also fit for its functional purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive
>Sir Jonathan Paul Ive, KBE (born 27 February 1967)[3] is a British designer and the Chief Design Officer (CDO) of Apple Inc. He oversees the Apple Industrial Design Group and also provides leadership and direction for Human Interface software teams across the company. Ive is the designer of many of Apple's products, including the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch and iOS.
>In 2004, he was named the "Most Influential Person on British Culture" by the BBC.
> Ive "embodies what Apple is perhaps most famous for: design"
>Ive was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2006 New Year Honours for services to the design industry. In the 2012 New Year Honours, he was elevated to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for "services to design and enterprise"
>>949035
>>It sounds like you'd rather be an inventor
>Hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately that career hasn't existed since the days of Edison.
Lots of people do it, just not how you think.
They don't pull down MASSIVE piles of money, but some of them live pretty well for the hours they put in every week.
Ever heard of Bad Dragon? Two guys, making and selling dragon dildos?.... (it's a /b/ meme, but still)
>>A lot of the Apple products are excellent product design, but were/are terrible from an industrial design standpoint
>Are Apple products hard to manufacture or something?
They were one of the first companies to try to produce electronics that showed no external fasteners, and that were glued together--making fairly common repairs like like battery or screen replacement difficult. That's pretty shitty work by industrial design standards, but a LOT of people loved how Apple products looked.
>> that number has declined from years past. And it's not likely to go back up anytime soon.
>I'm UK, is it shit here too? If you can't even get a job with engineering what should I do?
You still can, but it's going to be doing boring menial stuff. It's not going to be fun and adventure.
The thing about being an inventor today is that the tools and customers are easier to find than ever--but the products aren't. You really want to make and sell something in a niche market, that nobody else can economically produce.
To do that you need to be informed about an existing industry and what it can and can't easily do.
A big thing with Bad Dragon, for example, is that they do custom colors. That is something that the China factories simply can't accommodate.
I do think it's not *less* work to run your own business... You just have the privilege of skipping anything you think isn't productive.
>>949066
well the nature of their products is that they can't be mass produced. which is how they manage to charge such a premium. something like 200$ here in aus. so a few drops of dye when they're pouring the silicone into the molds doesnt add much to the cost of production. it's an up sell not so much a feature.
and this is the kicker, yes you need to find a niche market. but fuck me with a dragon dildo, there is a chinese factory churning out anything you can imagine there is a market for and selling it for a dollar. so how the fuck to make money? luxury items are one way. ridiculously expensive novelty items to stick up your butt see a massive downturn in sales in hard financial times. same with luxury soaps and shit. but you know what some guy did? he built a machine to manufacture poop. but not just one machine, four machines. and they sold for millions of dollars each. a little automated microbrewery for simulated turds. lookup cloaca by wim delvoye
I'm really not feeling the engineering man, I I love making stuff but I don't want to end up a STEM drone CAD monkeying and fault checking. I'm not denigrating this, it's just that I want to design new things. I'm doing product design, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna be the next James Dyson.
>>949054
Jonathan ives please leave you fucking piece of shit. You are a fucking criminal with your bullshit like a rotary volume knob in a mouse interface. Hisssssss. All your shit is bullshit. I hate you.
>>948947
>>948953
I googled it and there's barely any difference between product and industrial design. Also you can do BSc product design instead of BA so it's not all abstract BS. I think 4chan is just elitist. Here is the first year of the course at my local university.
>>949421
This is what product design will teach you to make. Something useless and completely impractical, and doesn't even work based on the sketches. This was a capstone design project I believe. Idiots who have never used a wrench before eat this shit up.
Product design teaches design methodology and ingrains in your head that utter BS can be made into a product, and it teaches you how to bring BS to life.
Industrial design teaches you how to make a usable product that's manufacturable, actually works, something that professionals will use, and something that will last.
>>949429
Also notice how none of the parts in the exploded view address the main functionality of the tool.
>>949426
I'll be a product designer who is actually good at STEM. This will put me ahead of the pack.
>>949429
If industrial design is so good then why does no university in my city which happens to be the best and most important city int he world offer the course? Only university I found doing it was 30 miles into the sticks, this is their course, I don't see how it's different to the product design course I posted earlier. It's only 30 miles, I could get there in under an hour but the problem is that as it's outside of the city I will be subject to the rail jews who extort commuter belt fat-cats. It would have to be really worth it.
>>949429
>>949426
Forgot pic
>>949421
This program contains a lot more fluffy crap. It's filled with "design language". The skills you learn hinge on unlocking your latent creativity and bringing those ideas to life.
>>949444
This program starts you off with machine shop stuff so you know that products you design are actually manufacturable. The third module there also addresses designing for functionality. Skills learned are a lot more concrete. They teach you how to design to solve a problem and how that design will interact with its environment.
Industrial design > product design
>>949450
You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna screencap 2 more courses, 1 product design and one industrial design and if you an tell the difference then I will believe you.
>>949454
I honestly didn't notice that you titled the second picture industrial design until I was done typing.
>>949455
I can't even do the test because I searched the country university database and only found three places that did industrial design and they all had the word industrial in the course description so would give the game away. There were hundreds of product design courses on the other hand. They are both accredited by the institute of engineering designers.
>>949457
Some places it's called product design, but they actually teach industrial design. Look out for programs are similar to the industrial design program you posted. They will actually teach you shit.
>>949460
Ok.
![Knipex-Mini-Pliers-Wrench-Hand-Scale[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oXYJA1M.jpg "Knipex-Mini-Pliers-Wrench-Hand-Scale[1].jpg")
>>949429
this already exists in a better and less complicated form.
this tool is the bomb, to bad its a bit expensive.
please use your eyes and brain before replying that this is a regular wrench.
>>949442
a bachelor of psychology is STEM. it's a bachelor of science. there are lunatics destroying the profession though. like in the UK they have a major hardon for this guy called john smith who is telling everyone you dont need statistics to work in psychology. he literally had a PhD for just asking three women if they felt better after their baby showers and writing two pages about it. too hard for woman you see. they just want to learn how to manipulate people, not all this math nerd bullshit.
>>949981
just want to say thanks for posting that, it can be a pain finding decent modern tools but that thing really looks great.
OP here I'm definitely 100% doing product or industrial design. Fuck mechanical engineering, it's 3 years of number crunching all to end up a glorified repair man.
>>950997
Ok 8 years since I finished my product design course. It's kind of a jack of all trades master of none role. The course covered everything from sketching, design philosophy, CAD drafting, sustainability, to manufacturability. It was full of the fluffy artists people are taking about, they designed impossible flimsy rubbish. Being in the least bit practical will give you a huge advantage. You'll come up with the concepts then others will flesh them out. You won't design the plastic injection mould, but having a grasp of what's possible will help, then someone will do all the cooling, expansion calculations etc
>>951011
Do you have a job? How much money do you make? Is the job fun?
>>951011
art courses will accept literally any rubbish.
the few people I met studying design at university just submitted the same formula drawn animu chibis on different formats. learning how to etch glass? fucking etch a shitty chibi sketch into it. learning to draw? fucking shitty chibi sketch. learning metal work? just punch an outline into an aluminium sheet of their chibi sketch. pottery? just glaze the chibis onto a standard vase.
really these people wasted their time. all the while going: I HAVE DONE AN ART!
>>951029
But we get more pussy.
I work in marketing and product development for a furniture manufacturer in the Midwest. Sometimes we'll get designers, other times we'll work on in-house concepts. It's a small team in a family based company so we don't really have an engineer, just two guys in R&D that have been making the stuff for 30+ years that may as well be engineers.
Product design is engineering but not all designers are engineers. We've worked with a German who would sketch things out really rough and leave the rest to guess work, and then there's designers that draw and dimension things digitally and it's a lot easier.
You need to determine who you want to be to the manufacturer, someone who can design the general form, or someone that can provide details down to each component, and details often save on time, money, and headaches.
>>949442
Manufacturing degrees are most often in manufacturing cities.
Location, location, location.
>>951057
I want to be self employed selling fantastic inventions on Kickstarter. Failing that I would like a normal job so I will take on board what you say. I am proficient with CAD, I don't just do rough sketches, I guess i'd be a detail guy for the company.
>Product design is engineering but not all designers are engineers
I thought as much, the course is accredited with the Institute of Engineering Designers.
>>951057
What degree do you have by the way?
>>951083
Just an associates in general studies. Didn't have a plan in college, tried a couple different majors over 4 years which included some product design and some cad.
I picked up some good skills and have learned by doing on the job otherwise. Considering going back to school for manufacturing engineering so I can get out of marketing and being a jack of all trades. It gets old after a while.
I know a few kids in industrial design. One of them could have probably gone into eng and done well, though the rest are just drug addled or mentally ill folk who think themselves creative. It's too bad that they're unstable and idle-minded, because I'm sure they would be capable and productive were they not thrillseeking addicts.
>>948851
product design is for those who can't into engineering
>>951153
Well as an industrial design undergraduate I would say it's for those who can't into architecture.
>>951013
Yep I've had a few jobs since then. Started out as a CAD monkey then moved to more of an R&D position. I see product design as in interesting tension between art and engineering, balancing both is important. To be honest I'm further to the engineering end of the spectrum. I'm on about 75K dollarydoos at the moment but I've got more of a design and project management role.
>>951057
is right, decide what you want to do. I'm interested in manufacturing but don't want to be the mould design guy. I'd rather have a broad knowledge of all manufacturing processes so that I can choose the ones that best suit what I'm designing rather than being stuck with one only one i know in depth. Why not leave that bit to the experts?
>>951082
If you want to design cool kick starter stuff a product design should help you make better stuff than other people. Just make sure you get the input of actual manufactures along the way.
>>948851
Well if it counts, I am a researcher in engineering design. I am a mechanical engineer, but I will try not to be elitist in this post.
From what it seems most product design degrees are in fact industrial design. Industrial design is primarily concerned with how a product looks and the user experience. It is not concerned with how a product achieves its functionality, that is the job of engineers.
Mixing up the roles of either can end badly. Industrial designers can design something that looks cool, but doesn't work while engineers can design something that works well, but is incredibly ugly. As has been emphasized before there needs to be a balance between the two.
>>948946
>>propeller hoverboards are never going to be good but they could have made a decent go of it with 30" propellers or similar
why? Is this a concern from a functionality perspective? As in lower cost, longer run time, etc? Or an aesthetic perspective? IE bigger propellers look cooler.
>>951082
I would recommend that you become a mechanical engineer then. Mechanical engineering teaches you how to go from problem to concept to prototype to an actual product. It teaches you all the skills to go from an idea to a product.
>>949026
>>Seems so dry though.
Admittedly yes. Even the name "mechanical engineering" belies what mechanical engineering is. It gives one an image of clockwork, gears, and cars, when in fact mechanical engineers do much more than this. In fact I was a bit disappointed when I found out machine design didn't cover making crazy mechanisms. It is very hard to give a good description of mechanical engineering because it encompasses a very broad set of things. Mechanical engineers have done things like design battery controllers, design new shape changing materials, make robots, rockets, and much more. The best description of mechanical engineering is a degree in inventing.
>>952043
Here's some of the stuff I learned what it is useful for(I can probably give better descriptions but I'm tired, not in order):
Statics: how do you analyze the forces on things
Solids: Now that you know the forces on things, how much do they flex, bend, or do they break. Extremely useful for making stuff as light and cheap as possible while not killing people
Dynamics: how do we analyze the motion and forces on things that move? Useful for making stuff that moves not break and making it move in the way we want
Machine Design: Bearings, gears, springs, shafts, screws, clutches, how to get the most performance out of them taking into account those evil bastards wear and fatigue(if you make stuff that can endanger the lives of others you better fucking know about fatigue).
Thermodynamics: how do we turn heat to power(power cycles), how do things heat up, how do we cool things down(refrigeration!) and doing so in the most efficient way possible.
Heat Transfer: How do we get heat from point A to B, does stuff get too cold, or does it melt
Thermofluid Systems: How do we do the last too in the real world
Materials: Why the fuck do we make stuff out of this stuff? Why do we use titanium over aluminum? Why is amorphous metal so based?
Materials Processing: How do we make stuff out of stuff. Manufacturing and stuff. Really useful so you don't decide to have everything machined to a mirror polish.
>>952048
Electronics: You can't do shit if you ignore electronics. A quick overview of digital and analog electronics.
Programming: You're fucked in this day age if you can't program.
Mechatronics: How do we analyze stuff with mechanical, electrical, magnetic, chemical components (SPOILERS: the math doesn't care about the component type)
Control: Now that we know all the above how do we control stuff to do stuff like stay balanced, damp vibrations, etc?
Engineering Finance: things cost money, how do you manage money to make money
Product Design: how do we figure out what the customer wants, turn this in to concrete engineering requirements, come up with ideas that solve these requirements, select the best one, refine the design, make prototypes, test the design, make the final design, and do all this as a team.
What I am trying to say here is mechanical engineering is not a "glorified repairman job"
>>948851
>>I could do engineering but product design seems a) more fun and b) more geared towards self employment plus it's available at my local university whereas engineering isn't.
You are using up ~4 years of your quite limited youth and potentially getting into big debt. Whatever you do, do something you won't regret. I would also recommend that you try to develop your kickstarter ambitions as fast as possible. Grand ambitions tend to evaporate once you get a stable job.
>>952043
lmao the complete opposite, bigger propellers look worse. You see the kids want their hoverboards to look like antigravity and the best way to do that is to "hide" small ducted fans in the board and ignore the noise.
