Patrons, friends and industry partners:

Thanks to your support we can proudly say that we’ve moved up – again -- in DesignIntelligence’s rankings. Our MID (Master of Industrial Design) Program rose from #3 to #2 in the nation, and our undergraduate BSID Program claimed the #7 spot. This is the first time our undergraduate program has been ranked in the top ten, thank you for making that happen!

School of Industrial Design Annual Update:

Much has happened over the past year as we continue to strengthen and grow our Design Programs.

We now have over 230 students in the School – 160 undergraduates in our BSID Program + 50 graduate students in our MID Program + 20 students in our MS-HCI-ID Program (Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction with a Specialization in Industrial Design).

Our new ID minor has also grown to more than 100 students participating from 7 other undergraduate programs across campus.

Exceptional student performance:

• 2 student projects were finalists in the IDEA Awards
• 3 Engagement Awards from the GT Wearable Computing Center
• 1st place award in the International Symposium on Wearable Computing
• 2nd place award in the GT Convergence Innovation Competition
• 2 students won awards for the President’s Undergraduate Research Awards
• 2 students were listed in the Top 100 of the Electrolux 2014 worldwide DesignLab Competition

Three new full-time ID faculty

Dr. Roger Ball, formerly the Endowed Professor of Asian Ergonomics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic, has joined the School of Industrial Design as Associate Chair and will oversee our rapidly growing MID Program.

We also welcome the addition of Dr. Katherine Fu and Dr. Cassandra Telenko - two new joint appointments with the School of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Fu’s work focuses on design methods and creativity while Dr. Telenko adds new strength in sustainable design.

Major advancement in research and design capabilities

Earlier this spring we held a very successful Symposium on Design & Wearable Technologies to showcase the design research and development evolving from our Interactive Product Design Lab: http://ipdl.gatech.edu.

We are currently constructing a new HMI (Human-Machine Interaction) Transportation Lab to conduct design research and development on issues related to driver distraction, in-car automation and in-car entertainment.

We're also building a new 3D Ergonomics Design Lab to leverage 3D scanning technologies to enhance the design, fit and function and performance of clothing, equipment and wearable technologies.

This year we plan to add two new faculty positions to help build our new research and curriculum initiatives.

2016 DesignIntelligence School Rankings Survey:

With your support, our goal is to continue to strengthen and raise the visibility and recognition of our School, our Design programs and the capabilities of our graduating students.

For the seventeenth consecutive year, DesignIntelligence is conducting their annual surveys of America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools. If you are a person in your firm who hires architects, interior designers, landscape architects or industrial designers, you are invited to share your experiences and perspectives to strengthen design education.

These annual rankings are today’s leading resource to rank architecture and design programs on the basis of their ability to prepare graduates for professional practice. You can access more information about the methodology and results of last year’s research at the DesignIntelligence website: www.di.net.

These short questionnaires will require approximately ten minutes of your time. Please plan to finish the survey in one sitting; you will not be able to return to the survey at a later time. The responding party must be in a leadership position qualified to hire employees. If you are not qualified to complete this questionnaire on your firm’s behalf, we ask that you forward it on to a more appropriate person. Individual responses will be kept confidential but a listing of the responding firms will be published.

Once again we are asking for your support. This year’s deadline is August 21. Please go to this link and complete the survey as soon as possible:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2016_Firms_Industrial_Design_Survey

The results of these studies will be published in the 17th annual edition of DesignIntelligence’s America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools, to be released in November 2015.

As a special thanks to you for your contribution, DesignIntelligence will send you a PDF executive summary of the report in November.

Please take the time to complete the DesignIntelligence Survey and thank you for your continued support.

You can find more current information on our program on our new website at: http://www.id.gatech.edu or you are welcome to contact me directly by email at jim.budd@coa.gatech.edu

Sincerely,

Jim Budd
Professor & Chair
School of Industrial Design
Georgia Tech