Program Overview

Industrial designers design products for consumers.  Examples include sports footwear, headphones, wearables and automobiles. Graduates of the program are in high demand for the practical skills gained through the program’s hands-on learning environment. These skills include sketching, digital graphic rendering, model-making and computer-aided design (CAD).  The program is project driven, and many of the design projects will involve industry collaboration to ensure real-world relevance.

Students elect a design specialization in Year 3 in one of:

• Automotive design
• Product design or
• Interaction design

Automotive designers design the appearance (styling) of motor vehicles including automobiles, motorcycles and off-road vehicles. Humber is the only industrial design program in Canada that offers an automotive design specialization. 
In product design, there is more emphasis on the method of finding a solution to a user’s problem in order to make doing a task easier or make the user experience with the product more satisfying.
Interaction design is a new offering in the program which recognizes that more and more physical products are integrating a digital component, including touch screens or voice activation.

Learning Outcomes

• Upon successful completion of the program, a graduate will:
  • Meet the professional criteria as established by the ACIDO Charter (The Association of Chartered Industrial Designers of Ontario), demonstrating core competencies in skills, knowledge and design methodology in industrial design meeting.
  • Design, document and communicate high quality interior design propositions of varying size, scope and complexity employing principles of evidence-based design methodology.
  • Explain how products work; how products can be made to work better for people; what makes a product useful, usable, and desirable; and how products are manufactured and serviced.
  • Select and employ appropriate visual languages to investigate, analyze, interpret, develop and articulate ideas for two and three-dimensional projects.
  • Produce sophisticated design proposals emphasizing three-dimensional quality of space achieved through architectural detailing.
  • Communicate concepts and requirements to other designers and colleagues who work with them, and to clients and employers. This need to communicate draws upon: verbal and written forms, two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, and levels of detailing ranging from sketching to engineering drawings.
  • Employ computer-aided drafting (CAD), computer-aided industrial design (CAID), and appropriate 2D and 3D graphic software to create graphic presentations and marketing materials.
  • Integrate sustainable practices in the design process and demonstrate leadership by educating users in these principles.
  • Analyze the complexity of forces – economic, political, physiological, sociological and technological – which influence the design of the physical environment.
  • Incorporate principles of user-centered design, human factors and ergonomics in design solutions.
  • Select appropriate methods and materials to achieve the technical functionality and aesthetically pleasing built environment.
  • Select the appropriate process(es) and materials for manufacture for a given production volume.
  • Support the marketing function with design strategy supported by graphic/3D materials.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between human behaviour and the built environment and the implications in preparing design solutions.
  • Assess the implications for interior design presented by key developments in current and emerging materials, media and technologies and in interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary design practice.
  • Source information on copyright, mechanical patents, and protection of intellectual property, as applied and practiced in the professional field of industrial design.
  • Develop a business case for and present design solutions to a variety of stakeholder in keeping with professional standards and practices.
  • Employ effective and professional communication skills and techniques to interact, negotiate and undertake collaborative efforts including meaningful discussion of one’s work in an open studio environment, with audiences, clients, markets, end-users and team members.
  • Work collaboratively with clients to develop an understanding of the product requirements, leading to a design brief.
  • Confidently employ appropriate professional accountability, personal and business ethics demonstrating competency of industry practices.
  • Work in a team effectively, utilizing skills of collaboration, negotiation, compromise and conflict resolution.
  • Employ appropriate conventions of measurement, scale, site measuring, drafting and volumetric manipulation through a variety of manual and digital modeling techniques.
  • Design to exceed the minimum standards of applicable laws, codes, regulations, and practices that protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.
  • Speak clearly and persuasively for design concepts and resources.
  • Plan and manage projects, demonstrate good time management skills, be a self-starter, and show resourcefulness.
  • Employ both convergent and divergent thinking in the process of observation, investigation, speculative enquiry, ideation, rationalization and implementation of design solutions.
  • Source, navigate, select, retrieve, evaluate, manipulate and manage information from a variety of sources, both primary and secondary.
  • Conduct themselves with honesty and integrity, demonstrating professional accountability.
  • Employ a variety of methods of design to develop design solutions.
  • Analyze information and experiences in order to articulate an academically structured, sustained and well-supported argument supporting a design issue or creative interior design solution.
  • Identify and analyze the customer needs of an identified target market.
  • Find relevant information that informs the design process, employing a number of techniques and skills including: observation, expert interviews, market information, and various digital search techniques.
  • Employ a variety of ideation techniques, including: sketching, brainstorming, rapid sketching, analogy, metaphors, symbols, and form exploration/sketch modeling
  • Develop a design solution which meets users’ needs, derived from concept development, product aesthetics (form, color, texture, haptics) that reflects market trends, human factors (including ergonomics, user interaction, and safety), model making, materials and technology, sustainable design, manufacturing feasibility and design validation, and cost.
  • Demonstrate good problem solving abilities.
  • Develop creative and innovative solutions.
  • Demonstrate a strong aesthetic sensibility and style, resulting in design solutions with visual appeal.
  • Articulate a well-supported argument justifying a design concept or creative design solution.
  • Articulate the difference and relationship between a product’s form and function and the emotional and experiential needs it fulfills.
  • Articulate design strategy in the context of business strategy.

Work Placement

• This program includes a work placement of 420 hours in the summer between Year three and four.