Making It For Real/Industrial Design Alumni Exhibition
Part II: Pre-1997 Alumni
Nov. 28, 2006 – March 10, 2007
Reception: Thursday, Dec. 14, 6 – 8 p.m
Brooks Stevens Gallery of Industrial Design
Tues. – Sat. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Motorcycles, road bikes, XBox 360 floor kiosk, DVD games and dishwashers are just some of the diverse industrial design genres on exhibit in Making It For Real/Industrial Design Alumni Exhibition, Part II: Pre-1997 Alumni. The exhibition opens Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006, and runs through March 10, 2007. The reception has been rescheduled for Thursday, December 14, 6 – 8 p.m., in MIAD’s Brooks Stevens Gallery of Industrial Design.
Participating alumni include: Mike Samarzja ’87, Buell Motorcycle Co. (East Troy, WI); Jeff Tumbleson ’88, Vehicle Improvement Products, Inc. (Antioch, IL); Kent Solberg ’90, Self-Employed Designer (Woodstock, IL); David Blomme ’94, Trek Bicycle Corp. (Waterloo, WI); Bryan Lump ’94, Design Phase (Waukegan, IL); Jim Contois ’95, Allsteel (Davenport, IA); Robert Jensen ’95, Milsco Manufacturing (Milwaukee); Dhiraj Madura’95, SRAM Co. (Chicago); Paul Rosetto ’95, Whirlpool Corp. (St. Joseph, MI); and Nikola Trifunovic ’96, Rockstar Games (San Marcos, CA).
On display, through products, prototypes, renderings or sketches, are Buell motorcycles; the SRAM Force road bike and its components; Microsoft XBox 360 floor kiosk; Folding Commode-Shower Chair designed for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Medical College of Wisconsin; Allsteel workstation Align System; Compaq Presario Notebook computers; Whirlpool dishwashers; Trek bicycle; DVD games for Sony, Midway and Rockstar Games; and steering wheel for Kenworth and Freightliner Class 8 truck market.
Industrial Design is the professional service of creating and developing concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value and appearance of products and systems for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer, according to the IDSA, the Industrial Designers Society of America.
According to BusinessWeek magazine’s annual “Best Product Design” section, design is a “must-have competency for corporations” as consumers look to design as the “new differentiator” in a sea of new products (2005, 2006).
Industrial design is currently MIAD’s largest major; nearly 90% of ID alumni 2000-2005 are employed within their first year of graduation and report employment satisfaction. In addition to the companies listed above, they are employed by such regional corporations and product firms as Master Lock, Harley-Davidson, GE Healthcare, Johnson Outdoors, DCI Marketing, Kohler, Flux Design and Brooks Stevens Design.
ID Professor Pascal Malassigné, FIDSA, who help educate many of the participating alumni and who led the design team for the folding commode-shower chair, was named one of America’s Most Admired Design Educators for 2006 by Design Intelligence Magazine.
