How to become Commercial and Industrial Designer in 2024

Commercial and Industrial Designer Design and develop manufactured products, such as cars, home appliances, and children's toys. Combine artistic talent with research on product use, marketing, and materials to create the most functional and appealing product design.

Commercial and Industrial Designer is Also Know as

In different settings, Commercial and Industrial Designer is titled as

  • Design Engineer
  • Designer
  • Industrial Designer
  • Mechanical Designer
  • Mold Designer
  • Product Design Engineer
  • Product Designer
  • Product Development Engineer
  • Sign Designer

Education and Training of Commercial and Industrial Designer

Commercial and Industrial Designer is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Commercial and Industrial Designer

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Commercial and Industrial Designer

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Commercial and Industrial Designer

Training Required for Commercial and Industrial Designer

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Commercial and Industrial Designer in different industries are

What Do Commercial and Industrial Designer do?

  • Prepare sketches of ideas, detailed drawings, illustrations, artwork, or blueprints, using drafting instruments, paints and brushes, or computer-aided design equipment.
  • Direct and coordinate the fabrication of models or samples and the drafting of working drawings and specification sheets from sketches.
  • Modify and refine designs, using working models, to conform with customer specifications, production limitations, or changes in design trends.
  • Coordinate the look and function of product lines.
  • Confer with engineering, marketing, production, or sales departments, or with customers, to establish and evaluate design concepts for manufactured products.
  • Present designs and reports to customers or design committees for approval and discuss need for modification.
  • Evaluate feasibility of design ideas, based on factors such as appearance, safety, function, serviceability, budget, production costs/methods, and market characteristics.
  • Read publications, attend showings, and study competing products and design styles and motifs to obtain perspective and generate design concepts.
  • Research production specifications, costs, production materials, and manufacturing methods and provide cost estimates and itemized production requirements.
  • Design graphic material for use as ornamentation, illustration, or advertising on manufactured materials and packaging or containers.
  • Develop manufacturing procedures and monitor the manufacture of their designs in a factory to improve operations and product quality.
  • Supervise assistants' work throughout the design process.
  • Fabricate models or samples in paper, wood, glass, fabric, plastic, metal, or other materials, using hand or power tools.
  • Investigate product characteristics such as the product's safety and handling qualities, its market appeal, how efficiently it can be produced, and ways of distributing, using, and maintaining it.
  • Develop industrial standards and regulatory guidelines.
  • Participate in new product planning or market research, including studying the potential need for new products.
  • Advise corporations on issues involving corporate image projects or problems.

Qualities of Good Commercial and Industrial Designer

  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.

Tools Used by Commercial and Industrial Designer

  • Compact digital cameras
  • Desktop computers
  • Laptop computers
  • Liquid crystal display LCD video projectors
  • Personal computers
  • Universal serial bus USB flash drives

Technology Skills required for Commercial and Industrial Designer

  • 1CadCam Unigraphics
  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Adobe After Effects
  • Adobe Creative Cloud software
  • Adobe FreeHand MX
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Apache Maven
  • Apple iOS
  • Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt
  • Autodesk 3ds Max
  • Autodesk AliasStudio
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Autodesk Maya
  • Autodesk Revit
  • C
  • C#
  • C++
  • Cascading style sheets CSS
  • Chaos Group V-Ray
  • Computer aided manufacturing CAM software
  • Corel CorelDraw Graphics Suite
  • Corel Painter
  • Dassault Systemes CATIA
  • Dassault Systemes SolidWorks
  • Delphi Technology
  • Eko
  • Email software
  • ESRI ArcGIS software
  • Figma
  • Finite element analysis software
  • Geometric CAMWorks
  • Hypertext markup language HTML
  • IBM Notes
  • InVision software
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • Kapwing
  • Maxon Cinema 4D
  • McNeel Rhinoceros 3D
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Project
  • Microsoft Publisher
  • Microsoft Word
  • Minitab
  • National Instruments LabVIEW
  • PTC Creo Parametric
  • Python
  • QuarkXPress
  • SAP software
  • Siemens NX
  • Siemens UGS NX
  • Software as a service SaaS
  • The MathWorks MATLAB
  • Trimble SketchUp Pro
  • Verilog
  • Web browser software
  • Xara Designer Pro