MIAD allows Natalie Quinnies to combine her past passions and experiences; it is where she found her true calling.
Quinnies, the 2015 Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) Design Foundation Undergraduate Scholarship winner and current Industrial Design senior, didn’t arrive at MIAD on a traditional path.
She always had a love of math and science, with the goal of someday becoming an engineer, but after a year of mechanical engineering studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she made the switch to graphic design at UW-Whitewater, going on to earn her first Bachelor’s degree.
It was Quinnies’ past experiences that led her to new understandings, “I began to understand the correlation between product and package, that they do not need to fight one another for importance, but can work together to attract the viewer’s eyes and heart.”
This strong desire to enhance the product to package relationship led Quinnies to MIAD in pursuit of her second Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, “MIAD not only enables me to leverage knowledge from multiple sources, but continually encourages me to look at design holistically.”
Quinnies hopes to use her knowledge of industrial processes to understand the lifecycle of the product and its packaging, working to minimize manufacturing and aftermarket waste.
“For when we are designing a new product, we are also responsible for the life space of the creation,” said Quinnies.
Read more about MIAD’s nationally ranked Industrial Design program.
