Drop the Beat, a wearable electronic drumset created by Wesley Chau at RISD last year

This is the latest installment of D-School Futures, our interview series on the evolution of industrial design education. Today we have answers from Soojung Ham, industrial design department head at the Rhode Island School of Design.

How different is industrial design education today than it was ten years ago? Will it look very different ten years from now?

For many decades, American corporations had been maintaining their business domains in mass markets by mastering their traditional business practices and manufacturing techniques. Their common interests and strategies were then to grow into global markets, increase efficiency, shorten a development cycle and offer a lower price than competitors. Over the years, many of them have moved their manufacturing facilities overseas to reduce their production costs, and later moved their design resources for further savings.

Meanwhile, over the past ten years, IT companies and startups have established new business models. They brought new design opportunities by researching emerging trends and unmet needs; developing new market segmentation to build their business channels; and introducing user-experience areas in the technological convergence between products and services. At the same time, digital applications like Arduino and 3D printing became more accessible to public users, and brought exciting opportunities to explore R&D processes through the open-source and DIY movement.

Many art schools and engineering schools responded quickly to the industry and offered design programs in UX, entrepreneurship, management and computing programs in their curricula. Ten years from now, I think many programs will be further iterated and even more integrated with other disciplines. In addition, some schools will continue to practice sustainability for ethical design strategies and collaborate with other entities (corporate/government) to create local manufacturing.

Soojung Ham (left) and ID students giving an interactive presentation

Bentwood lighting by recent RISD graduate Connie Shim

What would you say to a prospective student who worries about the relevance of an ID education in an increasingly digital world?

Whether there are more digital-focused designs in the future or not, in my view, designers will keep trying to create more meaningful designs for our lives. Markets will demand designers to create more opportunities for emotional engagement with objects/contents. And as individual users become more creative, they will desire greater personalization and social connection through their experience. Therefore, designers need to investigate nature/principles, develop concepts directly with users and update their competencies through rigorous practice.

This means that students should learn multiple disciplines and be trained to collaborate in a team or teams. They should discuss the nature/principles (emotion, social psychology, physics, biology, environment, etc.) through liberal arts and utilize various methodologies to solve problems, build context/systems, visualize concepts and test prototypes, and convey their theories and stories.

It seems that an increasingly digital world is replacing everything, but the principles have not changed.

What sets RISD's industrial design program apart from ID programs at other schools?

For many decades, RISD's industrial design program has been offering basic hands-on shop courses where students create objects and solve problems by working with given tools and manipulating a material for its characteristics, mechanical behaviors and constraints. Using similar processes, recently students are also working with digital information (data, context) to explore concepts through critical making and critical thinking in advanced design studios.

However, in the upper classes, it is not only important to work with principles but also to process user research and strategic thinking for application and market positioning. In some studios, students investigate a huge range of topics—smart materials, mindfulness, form and semantics, city/hospital infrastructure, human-powered vehicles, etc.—and often combine them with digital fabrication or UX systems to generate innovative solutions and business opportunities.

Smart materials work-in-progress

What's the job market like for recent graduates of your program? Is now a good time to embark on an ID career?

I think it is a great time to embark on an ID career. However, it is difficult to identify "ID" and the roles of designers because ID is becoming an extremely broad area. Since the recession, many companies are looking for recent graduates who are creative designers with digital skills, strategic thinking and open minds—multidisciplinary, collaborative, future thinking.

If you had to give just one piece of advice to an incoming student in your program, what would it be?

There is an unpredictable future in front of you. Know yourself and your ability to make changes. Be prepared and practice until you make a positive impact. Then do it again until you make a bigger impact on tomorrow.