Want to apply your art and design skills to build innovative products? You can do so by pursuing a career in industrial design.

It's about building anesthetically pleasing, mass-manufactured objects that help people's lives, says Christopher Rudwal, an industrial designer with Bombardier Recreational Products Inc. in Quebec and board member of the Association of Canadian Industrial Designers. Industrial design means designing, manufacturing, or packaging. It's a very exciting and innovative profession.

And the industry is growing, says Tim Antoniuk, associate professor with the University of Alberta's department of Art and Design. Because we live in a globalized society, companies are forced to design better products. It doesn't mean prettier [products], but products that work better.

To meet the demand, universities and colleges across Canada offer programs'at the graduate and undergraduate levels'that specialize in industrial design.

Consider U of A's Masters of Design (MDes) program in industrial design. Our focus is quite diverse, Antoniuk says. It's leveraging all the faculty research areas, which include medical design, sustainable design research, and aboriginal design. In their first year, they do a bit of everything. They do faculty-based research projects. In subsequent years, they can choose their own projects.

Peter Wehrspann earned an MDes in industrial design from Carleton University in Ottawa. It's very research-based, he says. We've got these problems and we're figuring out how new ingredients work together.

Wehrspann operates Holtzundmental Designs, a furniture design company in Toronto. He says he learned how to research the market and consumer needs to develop well-informed and hopefully popular products, and use the iterative process: ideate, prototype, test, redo. I now apply these concepts to my design and business practice.

Rudwal recommends augmenting your education with a master's degree. A bachelor's degree is a good way to see industrial design as a whole. With a master's, you can specialize according to your interests, such as cars or electronics.

However, a bachelor's degree in industrial design may not be required. We're getting more and more students from different faculties such as engineering, Antoniuk says. They have good technical design backgrounds, but lack a little bit in art and creative visualization.

Graduates, who can earn anywhere from $35,000 to $180,000, have a range of opportunities, Rudwal says. The highest demand for graduates comes from manufacturing companies of consumer goods. Sports, electronics, and transportation are amongst the top opportunities.

In any case, the major commonality is that it involves understanding who is going to be using your product, says Rudwal. You have to understand how humans interact with each other. Visual and oral communication [skills] are key ingredients, as well as a good sense of trends and thinking long-term.

Wehrspann found the MDes program very interdisciplinary, as you're working with folks from other disciplines, including business, engineering, and architecture. As Antoniuk says, you're collaborating with students from all sorts of different fields. You have to be able to negotiate that space.

Just like any career path, there are benefits. The greatest benefit is to be able to see [your] product mass-produced and used by hundreds of people and seeing the response, says Rudwal.

In terms of challenges, consumer goods are in constant evolution, he says. The high level of competition for market share and innovation challenges the designer to constantly find solutions for the future. He or she must come up with functional, environmentally friendly, innovative products.

Nevertheless, Wehrspann says it's an exciting career. You can change the world in a small or big way. It's hard not to enjoy creating, building, and envisioning as a career.

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