Industrial and Product Design

A program in the applied visual arts that prepares individuals to use artistic techniques to effectively communicate ideas and information to business and consumer audiences via the creation of effective forms, shapes, and packaging for manufactured products. Includes instruction in designing in a wide variety of plastic and digital media, prototype construction, design development and refinement, principles of cost saving, and product structure and performance criteria relevant to aesthetic design parameters.

With everyone glued to a smartphone, you may be hard-pressed to find someone using a pen─or having one on hand. 

But store stockrooms and stationary aisles will surely have a wide selection of pens. The ballpoint pen, invented in 1938 by journalist László József Bíró, came about because of a problem. After noticing newspaper ink dried quickly and was smudge-free, he used the ink in a regular pen. But the thick newspaper ink wouldn’t flow from the pen nib. 

He created a pen with a tiny ball at its tip. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated and picked up the ink easily. Problem solved!
As an industrial and product design major you will create products that will solve consumer issues and improve the quality of life.