When comparing two related things, the easiest way would normally be to simply look up their definitions and compare them side by side. When it comes to product design and industrial design, however, it is not that easy.
Product design means different things to different people, and the entire process can vary from product to product. Essentially, product design is all the work done from a product’s initial idea to the point where it reaches customers’ hands (or sometimes beyond).
Industrial design can be a part of product design. It can even be product design entirely on its own. But industrial design usually applies only to industrial products. In other words, while a fashion designer or software developer uses product design to develop their own concepts, an industrial designer uses it only to create a final product or produce something distinctive.
When talking to people outside technical fields, someone may use industrial design and product design interchangeably. In many ways, they are the same thing. Both do the same kind of work. Product design might even be thought of as a subset of industrial design.
Because industrial design receives more focus, many universities offer courses and programs in the field, usually with undergraduate or graduate degrees. When employers want something specific made, they usually look for industrial designers. Industrial designers often specialize in areas that further define the nature of their work, such as transportation, architecture or similar fields.
A Look at Industrial Design
Industry is the reason people in the developed world enjoy the standard of living they have today. Before industry, everything was a unique handmade object. Then came mass production, which allowed a group of people, mostly with the help of machines, to create the same objects in large quantities, from clothing to cars.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without engineers to organize and optimize the mass production process. Industrial designers were the force behind the Industrial Revolution. Unlike engineers, these designers were artists who found ways not only to make many great products cheaply, but also to make those products aesthetically pleasing so that people would want to buy them.
Industrial designers make useful products that serve a need, and even make them more practical or more beautiful. They are the ones who create new models of a car, or improve the ergonomics of a chair or a computer keyboard. They keep all our modern conveniences fresh and new, making them ever more practical as time goes on.
A Look at Product Design
Product design covers everything that is a product, including the things that fall under industrial design. While this pushes an industrial designer to be something of an engineer in their field, a clothing designer, for example, or someone developing food products or tableware, has no such need. Today, product designers also take part in the creation of products with no tangible manufacturing at all, such as digital products like software.
The confusion between product design and industrial design tends to occur where the two overlap. Someone working to build or modify an airplane is engaged in product design, and probably in industrial design as well. Most of the time, there really is no distinction between the two.
Product designers generally work to produce many of the everyday items you use daily, but specially designed goods, like cars, computers and many of the devices we enjoy, have usually been touched by an industrial designer at some point in the process.
The Difference…
In truth, the distinctions do not make a very big difference, because both types of design share the same purpose: creating or refining a product. The words in question, ‘product,’ ‘industrial’ and ‘design,’ are all, to put it briefly, broad terms that are hard to pin down to simple definitions.
Product design is about just what it sounds like; the design of a product means that product, whatever it may be, will be sold to consumers. It is about how we get new things, or new versions of things we already use. Industrial design is based on products intended for mass production. It needs branches of industry. Product design is a broader concept. It is more user-centered and can include one-of-a-kind productions. Products developed through industrial design are not necessarily designed entirely for the user’s benefit; their design goals may also make things easier for the manufacturer.
Source:
What is the Difference between Product Design & Industrial Design?
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Thanks to Ibrahim Güvendikler for editing the translation.