An introduction to the field

Industrial Design is a blend of the art of designing and familiarity with industry. In industry, innovation is one of the factors that has always been subject to attention due to rise of new needs and also mankind's need to variety. In order to provide new designs and ideas in this field, besides an emphasis on designing skills with regards to its artistic aspects, one must be informed about other scientific aspects as well.

Domains in which industrial designers are most active are:

• Product Design: Including home appliances, office and home furniture, visual and auditory devices, mobile phones, office machinery, writing instruments, toys, clothing, etc.
• Transportation Design: Designing the body style and the interior of cars and other vehicles.
• Environmental Design
• Packaging Design: Packaging of goods and different products, space, furniture, urban arrangement and all its subcategories including parks, display rooms, shopping malls, bus and taxi stations and all public environments, traffic installations, urban advertising, green spaces, urban beautification, etc.
• Decoration Design: Including decoration of homes, offices, stores, business centres etc.
• Branding Design: Due to the capacities of industrial designers in idea development, sometimes the graduates of this field act as consultants in large and small companies. Branding design for industrial complexes is among the capabilities of the graduates of this field of study.

Courses of Industrial Design at B.A level

In 1995, the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education provided the following general framework for the courses of the field of industrial design at B.A level:

• Basic courses (42 credits): Including principles of visual arts, basic designing workshop, photography workshop, geometrics, sculpture, ergonomics, Islamic art and civilization, introduction to art in history, modeling, mathematics, form and space physics.
• Main courses (36 credits): Including statics, light and electricity physics, industrial cartography, history of industrial design, ergonomics, industrial productions evaluation, design of objects in Islamic civilization, economics and management of industrial productions, materials and building methodology, industrial sociology, computer design and technical design.
• Specialized courses (37 credits): Including principles of  industrial design, form and space, modeling, design workshop, 9 projects in industrial designing (including process of industrial design, package design, quick design, furniture design, the present and the future, industrial sociology, work in factory, etc.) and the final project.
• General courses (22 credits).