INTERFERENCES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN AND ENGINEERING IN FUTURE DESIGN EDUCATION

During the last years, the differences between industrial design and engineering design have become increasingly blurred. The two disciplines show interferences regarding their methods, problems and ideas. Fundamentally, they also share the term ‘design’ which addresses industrial design as well as engineering design. This is visible particularly in contemporary product development processes where a holistic understanding of the word design forms the base of successful communication and collaboration between designers and engineers [1]. Radical changes in industry regarding speed, cost efficiency and quantity influence the design process and thus design education. An acceleration of product life cycles requires the parallel development of product parts and systems. Customized industrial goods have to meet the specific needs of a small target group. Users need to be involved in their development. Within these complex systems digital and analogue design overlaps. With our contribution to the E&PDE conference 2017, we will present our education concept as an ongoing research project. It has a focus on product design education at tertiary – and thus university – level. We want to discuss interferences of industrial design and engineering and we will have a closer look at particular examples from our process, for instance at our newly established makerspace and virtual reality lab.