Initially 'industrial design' implied victorian columns and decorations 
and later more of the same but in art deco style. The real 'industrial 
design' started when mass production and price pressure caused makers to 
try to make something cheap and ugly not so ugly. This resulted in the 
famous minimalist designs of consumer goods from the 1920s and 1930s 
on. The tradition lives on today and usually when you say inductrial 
design today you are talking about a piece of machinery or equipment 
that was shaped and colored and textured such that it is pleasing to the 
human user or onlooker, but with a minimum possible expense in labor 
and materials.

This is the way I know it.

Peter
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