ID [PNW]

VIA Handheld Printer & Scanner designed by Matthew Koscica , Jasmine Schubert , Dylan Willis Western Washington University Industrial Design International Design Excellence Award - Bronze 2021 (IDEA) and Winner of the Gray Award 2021 for student design and Winner of Core77 Design Awards 2021 for Consumer Technology - Student Notable This compact multi-tool acts as a portal between digital information and our physical world. VIA, a handheld printer and scanner, is designed to reduce the pain points of conventional printing while bringing ease of use and excitement to the process. By allowing the human to be the driving force behind the printer, size is reduced, paper jams are avoided, and points of failure are lessened.   VIA uses emerging wide printhead technology and guidance rollers to achieve a single swipe, simple printing process. Current printers have limited use cases by having the paper advance through the printer, but by instead allowing the printer to be moved acros...

With the recent introduction of effective and accessible virtual reality systems this new tool can be used in the context of industrial design and augment the design process. Virtual reality (VR) can be a useful tool and has the potential to radically improve the work flow for designers. The thesis of this research is that VR can improve the efficiency of the industrial design process through early visualization and evaluation of design concepts. In the early stages of a design project, many CAD sketch models can be created more quickly than physical models. These CAD sketch models can then be viewed and evaluated using VR very effectively. A one on one critique and discussion between a manager or professor and the designer can happen while viewing the designs in VR and on a screen. This allows for a convergence onto a design direction, which can then be further refined as a physical model. At the end of the design process, VR is also more effective at communicating design ...

by Prof. Jason A. Morris  May 11, 2018 Did you know that some of the latest and greatest product designs were designed by Western Washington University's elite industrial design program alumni? Here are just a few examples: Oculus Go Virtual Reality device: designed by Peter Bristol, creative director and Head of Industrial Design at Oculus, (class of 2004), Joe Sullivan (class of 2005) and Mauricio Romano (class of 2015) and the rest of the design team at Oculus. https://www.oculus.com/go/ Microsoft Surface Pro Designed by Carl Ledbetter, Principal Director of Design at Microsoft, (class of 1987), Benjamin Peterson, Industrial Designer at Microsoft Surface (class of 2011) and the rest of the design team at Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-pro/overview Xbox One X The world’s most powerful gaming console. Designed by Carl Ledbetter, Principal Director of Design at Microsoft, (class of 1987) an...

Western Washington University Industrial Design Program News Update December 2016 Jolee Nebert – Outstanding graduate of 2016 Jolee Nebert is the outstanding graduate from the WWU industrial design program. She has grown from being an excellent student to becoming an amazing professional. She was selected for an internship at GE Appliances, where she worked full-time as a part of the design team. Then she designed a beautiful microkitchen for a competition. Among 80 international entries, she won Grand Prize and $2500. Then, her design was given the grand prize for innovation in small space living in the New York City Big Apps competition. Where she was awarded round trip expenses to NYC to present her work and was featured in the Seattle and New York Times. After her time at GE, she went to Austin, Texas and worked on the creative team at Argo to explore the role of future technologies in the office environment. That led to being approached by a French start-up company, ...

“So many of the designers that we interview don't know how to make stuff, because workshops in design schools are expensive and computers are cheaper. That's just tragic, that you can spend four years of your life studying the design of three dimensional objects and not make one.” - Jony Ive "Design Education is Tragic Says  Jony Ive" This is the quote from Apple industrial designer Jonathan Ive being shared this past week.  You can read the full article about his recent talk in the UK. As a design educator I have two different responses, one is to the content of his message and secondly to the messenger that it is coming from. First off, the statement is a broad generalization of every design school in the world, which is unfair.  Design schools are quite different from each other, each with it own focus and philosophy of educational methodology. Although this generalization is his perception based on the portfolios that he has seen.  And when on...

Mt.  Baker  Plywood Furniture Design Competition Winner’s Announcement Furniture Design for Bellingham Western   Washington  University Industrial Design June 13th, 2013 Five judges have reviewed and selected their favorites among 23 furniture designs.  The project was part of the sophomore course, Sophomore ID studio 2 (Etec 216), led by Associate Professor Jason Morris. The objective was to design and construct a unique furniture solution for a community non-profit organization for their current needs.  The furniture will be then given to that organization as a gift. Mount Baker Products has generously donated all of the high quality FSC hardwood plywood for the project and has also donated $6000 for scholarships for the winners.             Student designers choice award - $300 Colton Sanford - Lego and craft table for the Boys and Girls Club of America   ...

Curvilinear Space Analysis by Johan Axelson I'm attempting to bring some traditional form studies from Rowena Reed Kostellow's Elements of Form into the design education at Western Washington.  These studies date back to the 1940's and the development of the original industrial design curriculum.  This is a space analysis that I did as a student of Lenny Bacich at Pratt Institute.  He was a student of Rowena's and tried to teach these very difficult form abstractions to me.  Only now that I'm teaching it do I realize what they mean and why they are so valuable.  Rectilinear Space by Larisa Schulze The forms here are done by my junior ID students.  They are not computer models, they are made with paper and wire. They have very strict rules regarding the elements used and where they can be placed.  But the intent is to expand the negative volume and create a beautiful and interesting space.  But the real goal to increase the visual and ...

Students from Western Washington University’s Industrial Design program captured multiple awards in two recent design contests. "Dip," by Western Washington University Industrial design student Larisa Schulze of Gig Harbor, recently won a Silver Award at the annual Shaggies design competition. Larisa Schulze of Gig Harbor won a Silver Award at the Shaggies, a biennial design competition open to designers all across the Western United States and Canada.  She was recognized for the design of her wood laminated reading bench, “Dip,” designed for children. Samuel Martin of Seattle won a Bronze Award at the Shaggies for "Enfold," a design of eyeglass frames constructed of laser-cut tensile steel, rolled and press-broken to shape, and then powder coated to finish. The frames may be fit with any standard polycarbonate reading or corrective lens. Recent Industrial Design graduate Thomas Kloucek won a Bronze Award in the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" category f...

by Jeffrey Grothe by Daniel Galan by Hunter Frerich These are designs done by my students as they attempt to redesign the tape dispenser.  Sophomore ID studio 2, 2011.