The University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Art and Design offers a highly competitive industrial design program that focuses on design processes, research and methods for a wide range of design applications that improve people's lives. UIC's four-year industrial design degree offers instruction in areas such as interactive product design, materials and methods, sculpture and drawing for designers. Industrial design students at UIC also use the university's ties to Chicago industry for collaborative research and development with companies such as Design for Democracy, Rehco, Motorola, Whirlpool and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
UIC industrial design students are also expected to enter their thesis projects in the annual UIC Design MFA Show in May at the UIC Innovation Center.
UIC School of Art and Design
929 West Harrison Street
106 Jefferson Hall
Chicago, IL 60607
312-996-3337
adweb.aa.uic.edu
The Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design is a graduate school of design that offers a number of graduate courses and majors that encompass all fields of design, from graphic to product and industrial. IIT’s Institute of Design has dedicated itself to the improvement of the design innovation process by developing and focusing on a more methodological and human-centered approach to design. The institute says its unique graduate program teaches the "world’s most intensive program of advanced methods and theories of design."
IIT offers several degree programs, including the master of design (MDes), the master of design methods (MDM) and PhD. All graduate programs require a minimum of two to five years' work experience in the fields of industrial design, product design, design planning or design research and require six semesters of full-time commitment for prospective students with a non-design bachelor’s degree.
IIT Institute of Design
3300 South Federal Street
Chicago, IL 60616
312-567-3000
www.iit.edu
Columbia College Chicago offers a number of highly competitive industrial and product design programs. Columbia College’s programs, established more than a decade ago, focus on the understanding of the conceptual language of design intertwined with the necessary technical skills to develop and communicate the design ideas. The programs teach students to hone their research, drawing, model-making and presentation skills through computer-aided design technologies such as computer aided manufacturing
Industrial and product design students from the college have worked on industry collaborations in the greater Chicago area such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Bretford, Life Fitness and the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605
312-663-1600
www.colum.edu