-- Professor He Renke, Department of Industrial Design, Hunan University
I. Overview of U.S. Industrial Design Education
According to the 1998 survey of the American Industrial Designers Association (IDSA), there are 49 institutions in the American Industrial Designers Association Register that provide bachelor and graduate programs in industrial design.
Typical industrial design majors are set in the university's art department and can award bachelor degrees in fine arts or science, most of which are accredited by the National Association of Art and Design Colleges (NASAD). On average, there are 100 undergraduate students in each industrial design major, including 22 female students and 18 minority students. About 18 of these undergraduates graduate each year. 81% of the graduates are still engaged in their chosen profession after graduation for 4 years. The typical industrial design profession has 4 full-time teachers and 8 part-time teachers, in addition to 2 teaching assistants, as secretary and laboratory guidance. Of the industrial design professions, there are 26 state schools and 23 private schools. If it is state industrial design, the average tuition fee for the students in the state is 2,600 US dollars per year, while the private tuition fee averages 14,000 US dollars per year. About half of the industrial design majors have graduate programs. In the industrial design specialty with graduate courses, there are an average of 20 graduate students, including 6 female students, 3 minority students and 5 foreign students.
Of the 49 industrial design professionals registered by the American Institute of Industrial Designers, 15 have not yet obtained accreditation from the National Association of Arts and Design Colleges. The American Institute of Industrial Designers has decided that five years from now, it will only recognize the industrial design profession certified by the National Association of Art and Design Colleges. According to statistics from 1996, 37 industrial design majors are located in universities in the United States, 6 in colleges and 4 in art colleges. This pattern has not changed much.
According to the academic affiliation of the majors, there are 23 industrial design disciplines in the art and design curriculum, of which 9 are located in the Design Institute, 2 are in the School of Architecture, and 6 are in the Academy of Fine Arts. There are eight industrial design specialties in the Institute of Technology. Nearly 40% of industrial design professions have no or almost no connection with art disciplines. Because the American education system encourages each major to develop its own teaching characteristics, the curriculum of each industrial design major varies. Especially in the proportion of professional courses and basic education courses in industrial design, each school is very different. The high is 75/25, while the low is only 20/80. The average is 56/44. On the whole, the proportion of professional courses has a downward trend.
The US Industrial Design Program offers a wide range of degrees, from fine arts to liberal arts, science, and a special degree in industrial design. The undergraduate school system is generally 4 years, but also 3 years, 4.5 years and 5 years. In recent years, the development of industrial design education in the United States has developed rapidly. In 1998, 4326 undergraduate students in the industrial design profession recognized by the American Industrial Designers Association were employed, of which 945 were female students (21.8%). The smallest industrial design professional has 13 undergraduate students, the largest 340 people.
With the strong development of the U.S. economy, the demand for high-level industrial design professionals is also growing. In 1998, there were 27 institutions in the United States that had postgraduate courses in industrial design, including various master's and doctoral degree programs. From 1996 to 1998, the total number of postgraduate students at school increased from 269 to 528, which almost doubled. The largest number of graduate programs have 140 registered graduate students.
The first industrial design professional in the United States has a history of 76 years, and the latest specialty has only been established for 7 years. The average history is 37 years. In the past 40-50 years, about 24,300 students have obtained bachelor's degrees related to industrial design.
Second, the United States industrial design talent requirements
In 1998, the American Institute of Industrial Designers carried out a questionnaire survey on the major talents of industrial design graduates, including design companies and corporate design departments in the United States, to understand the requirements of the job market for industrial design education. The main content of the survey is to ask employers to put forward their own opinions on the professional qualifications and skills that undergraduate students of industrial design should have. The questionnaire listed 26 related projects and asked respondents to evaluate the importance of these projects in design education. According to the survey results, the importance of the 26 projects is as follows:
1. Creatively solve problems;
2, 2-D concept sketch;
3. Verbal and written expressions;
4, materials and production processes;
5. Computer-aided industrial design;
6, multi-disciplinary exchanges;
7, the concept of model production;
8, business practice;
9, design theory;
10, mathematical knowledge;
11, graphic design;
12, engineering technology;
13, cognition and consumer psychology;
14, research and information processing;
15, marketing practices;
16, history of art and design;
17. Art and Humanities;
18. Computer-aided engineering design;
19. Human body measurement and job analysis;
20, full-size model production;
21. Work prototype production;
22, display prototype production;
23, mechanical drawing;
24. Computer generated images;
25, rapid prototype;
26, video / multimedia production.
The top nine items in the above rankings are considered very important, the last two items are not necessary, and the rest are important.
Other recommended items are: work attitude, sense of humour, multicultural awareness, environmental awareness, color theory, sculpture, sketching, time management, basic 2-D and 3-D design, foundation of architecture and interior design, information design, ethics , interpersonal communication, foreign languages, performance techniques, etc.
Third, the characteristics of the United States industrial design education
The United States was the first country to achieve professionalization in industrial design. Its industrial design education also has a long history, has accumulated rich experience, and has also formed distinctive features. The emphasis of American industrial design education has been on product design from the very beginning, and there has been a trend of more and more specialization. For example, the leading specialty of the American Art Center Design Institute is automotive design, and the leading specialty of the Cranbrook School of Design is furniture design. The industrial design of North Carolina State University’s School of Design, which I studied and visited, has a tradition of paying attention to Universal Design. This trend of specialization is the result of the demand for design talent with the highly commercialized society in the United States. In the past decade or so, computer-aided design has become increasingly popular in the United States. The procedures and methods of industrial design, the way of thinking in industrial design, and even the objects of industrial design have all undergone tremendous changes. This has had a great impact on industrial design education. In order to meet the challenges of the times, the education system and methods of industrial design have undergone major reforms. The Design Education Committee of the American Institute of Industrial Designers has done a lot of work for this purpose. Each year, a special seminar is held to discuss the ideas for designing educational reforms and exchange the experience of design education reform in various institutions. According to the author's experience of visiting the United States in the past year, U.S. industrial design education has the following characteristics, which can be used for reference by colleagues in the Chinese design education community.
1. Emphasizing Industrial Design Procedures and Methods As early as the beginning of the professionalization of industrial design in the United States, many design offices in the United States have developed detailed industrial design procedures and methods to ensure the commercial success of product design. The design education in the United States also attaches importance to cultivating students' rigorous design procedures and methods. Teachers have developed a detailed design guide before the design class. They have clear requirements for each stage of the design process such as topic selection, market research, cost analysis, marketing, and product design. Special emphasis is placed on students' standardized design expressions. Expression includes not only textual expressions, visual expressions, but also verbal design expressions. Through this kind of rigorous training, students have a higher professional quality, and have a more complete understanding of the connotation of industrial design, but also help students successfully enter the job market. After several years of professional study, students of industrial design can usually accumulate some complete design cases and become important information for their job search.
2. Respond to Social Needs, Foster Pragmatic Talents The US job market for industrial design is fiercely competitive, and companies require industrial design graduates to enter the role as quickly as possible. In order to meet the requirements of the society, the school's design education must be as close as possible to the specific requirements of the company's designers. In addition to meeting corporate needs in the curriculum setting, the school pays special attention to close cooperation with the company. It not only develops products together with the company, but also encourages students to go to the company for longer-term internships to understand the specific operation of the company's industrial design. Student design issues often come from companies. Schools also try to connect with companies in the hardware and software configuration of computer-aided design.
3. Attention to cooperation with related disciplines and training of designers' collaboration Spirit of industrial design in the enterprise usually requires close cooperation with management, marketing, technology, etc. A qualified industrial designer must have a spirit of collaboration and be good at experts with various aspects. Deal with. In order to cultivate the team concept of the designer, some topics in the design department are organized by student groups of the industrial design students and management colleges, engineering colleges, and give full play to their expertise to jointly complete consumer surveys, market analysis, and products. Positioning, product development