Minor in Product Design

The common core of courses shared by students in the College of Architecture (interior design, architecture, landscape architecture) and the Hixon-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, provides students with an understanding of the design and fabrication process at a range of scales.

The minor in product design provides an opportunity to explore design at a smaller, yet related scale. It allows students to develop academic strengths that will prepare them for advanced study and careers in the design of objects that people interact with on a personal level, of a size and function related to human dimensions. This includes furniture and a variety of manufactured objects. The minor is available to students majoring in interior design, architecture, landscape architecture, emerging media arts, graphic design, art, and mechanical engineering.

Product Design Minor Requirements (18 credits)

Required 12 credits:

IDES 201 Introduction to Product & Industrial Design (3 credits)
An investigation into industrial design, the history of the profession, process and methods used in the creation of objects, and contemporary issues facing the field.

IDES 301 Material Applications (3 credits)
Conceptual application and aesthetic study of materials and the impact they have on an interior environments atmosphere and experience. Fabrication tools and techniques are studied and tested as they relate to the customization of materials and objects for interiors.
Or, DSGN 421 CNC Router (1 credit), and DSGN 422 Metals (1 credit), and DSGN 423 Plastics (1 credit)

IDES 416 Product Design Visualization (3 credits)
Explore the full scope of the product design process from opportunity discovery, design development, to fabrication of full-scale prototypes.

IDES 417 Product Design (3 credits)
(IDES 210, IDES 301 (or DSGN 421, DSGN 422, and DSGN 423), and IDES 416 pre-requisites)
Generate a design from conception to a finished product that emphasizes the awareness of the human and the environment in the creation of product design solutions.

Select 6 credit hours from the following courses:

CERM 131 Ceramics for Non-Majors: Wheelthrowing (3 credits)

CERM 132 Ceramics for Non-majors: Handbuilding (3 credits)

ENTR 321 Foundations of Entrepreneurship (3 credits)

GRPH 221 Graphic Design I (3 credits)

IDES 445 History of Interiors & Designed Objects (3 credits)

IDES 484 Material Culture: The Social Life of Things (3 credits)

IDES 491 Selected Topics in Interior Design* (Dependent upon topic and review of program faculty) (3 credits)

MECH 370 Manufacturing Methods and Processes (3 credits)

MECH 492 Special Topics (Making for Innovation) (3 credits)

MRKT 300 Contemporary Marketing (3 credits)

SCLP 111 Sculpture for Non-Majors (3 credits)