At 08:49 PM 10/5/2005 -0500, you wrote:


>Industrial design is something that should be more widely taught in
>engineering courses.

I think Industrial design might be close to orthogonal to regular 
engineering.
Maybe it's easier for a skilled artist to learn the basics of molded part
design and mechanical engineering than it would be for a mech eng to go the
other way. According to US Dept of Labor stats, there are about 52,000
commercial and industrial designers in the US. Guessing that 10% of those
would have something to do with electronics, and that 20% of them would be
any good at it (Pareto's Principle), we have around 100 good electronics-
oriented industrial designers in the whole US.

Hong Kong is an interesting example of a place that lives from design of
mass-produced consumer items. The government there has placed an emphasis
on design, in the correct realization that the difference in value between
a product perceived as "cheap" and one that is "cool" often boils down to
design and implementation of that design (feel, fit and finish and that sort
of thing). The former requires good industrial design, the latter good
engineering, top-notch tool and die makers, all working with modern CNC
equipment and CAD/CAM software. There is a permanent Design Gallery display
of products on display in the Wanchai Convention Centre that's well worth
checking out the next time you find yourself in the former colony.

I do see the "cool looking" designs with that d*mn compound curves and other
hard-to-design features migrating out to things like DIN-mount
cases (not only are they industrial in application, but they get mounted
on hidden panels surrounded by wire troughs!). Consumer items set a very
high standard. IIRC, the designer of the case for the orignal Apple Mac
was paid a small fortune for that era to do that work. Another example
of excellent design is the Miata. Both were designed in California.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
->> Inexpensive test equipment & parts http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspeff


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