People look at 3D-printed student projects of enhanced body scans.

Design Innovates Across Industries

Design Innovates Across Industries

Georgia Tech is one of the nation’s top destinations for students interested in technological innovation. That’s also what makes our industrial design program right for students interested in the creative potential of design.

Our programs offer a well-rounded course of study with a focus on user-centered design and an emphasis on critical thinking, design skills, design communication, and user experience. 

A pair of felt shoes made by students in an exhibition space.

Undergraduate Options

Our undergraduate curriculum is built around a series of eight studios – one each semester throughout the four years of the program. The ID studios focus on a sequential learning path that progressively builds in project complexity while integrating key components of the design process -- research, concept explorations, design development, prototyping, and user testing.

Flexibility and Choice

Our ID curriculum has been restructured to provide students with the flexibility to tailor their individual course selections to meet specific personal career goals and objectives. Industrial design is growing and maturing as a discipline, providing a growing range of career options for our graduates:
 

  • Our Product Development and Innovation specialization applies advanced design and manufacturing methods to develop innovative new concepts for a broad range of product design applications. We focus on parametric modeling, 3D scanning, advanced materials, and digital manufacturing.
  • Our Health and Well-Being specialization focuses on a proactive approach to the application of design research, universal design, and product and service design to create new innovations in wellness and health-related products and ecosystems.
  • Our Interactive Product Design specialization leverages advances in body scanning, sensor-based technologies, and soft goods design to explore opportunities to design and develop "smart" products and next-generation wearables.

Specialty Skills

To reinforce preparation for your career path, we offer a progressive series of electives to help build the specific specialty skills you'll need to be properly positioned for your career goals and objectives upon graduation. Depending on your personal goals, possible options could include:
 

  • For a "hands-on" design career, you might select courses in parametric modeling, digital design methods, and additive manufacturing.
  • For a career in the "internet of things" (IOT) and smart product technologies, you might choose advanced courses in interactive product design, interactive environments, and wearable technology.
  • For a career in design for wellness and health-related products and systems, you might opt for courses in universal design, service design, and advanced design research.
     

Or you might want to combine specialization options:
 

  • For a career in the health care field focused on the design of monitoring equipment, you may want to combine a series of electives from both the Health Care and Interactive Product Design specializations, including universal design, advanced interactive product design, and advanced design research.
  • Conversely, for a career in the health care field focused on hands-on equipment design, you might want to combine electives from both the Health and Well-Being and Product Development specializations, including universal design, parametric modeling, and sensor based technologies.
A green, 3D-printed bust of a body scanned student.

Graduate Options

The School of Industrial Design at Georgia Tech now offers two graduate program options in Industrial Design, the Master of Industrial Design (MID) and the Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction (MS-HCI) with a specialization in industrial design.

Research, Design, Tech Focus

Both programs capitalize on Georgia Tech’s rich traditions in technology and research. They also focus on a user-centered design process and evidence-based design practice that offers students unique opportunities to explore the design of new and existing technologies.

Faculty members, who are practicing designers and experts in their fields, maintain active research programs in tangible products within communication technologies, enabling environments, supportive product systems, rehabilitation technologies, and health care systems technologies.

Each program offers an interdisciplinary course of study with early emphasis on understanding the design process and developing project-based design skills. Those design projects stress realistic design situations. Students have the opportunity to be involved in sponsored and/or funded projects. Students are encouraged to expand individual disciplinary talents and respond to changing opportunities in the field.

360 Virtual Tour of design building

Take a Virtual Tour

Ready to experience what it's like to be a fellow Industrial Design Yellow Jacket? Whether you want the large-scale feel of a virtual campus visit or the close connection of a one-on-one meeting, we're committed to providing a virtual experience that's customized just for you.

Have a VR headset or Google Cardboard? You can use these devices to take the VR tour on your mobile device.

Connect with Us

Troy Whyte

Troy Whyte

Undergradute Academic Advisor

Tamika Blanks Headshot

Tamika Blanks

Graduate Academic Advisor

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