As an ID major student at RISD, I have been very confused about what is ID and what is being an industrial designer. Before I try to find answers to my questions, I would like to talk a little bit about my background. Since I was in elementary school, I started painting and drawing particularly to become a fine artist. As I expand my ambition through attending art middle school and high school, it became clear that I want to work in painting, drawing, and sculpture. However, since I have always been interested in 3D stuff such as furniture, kitchenware, and lamps, I chose to go into ID major when I became a sophomore at RISD.


Learning ID through curriculums for the sophomore, I often faced problems with designing process especially in Design Principles class. People talk about eco-friendly designs. People concern about functionalism, universal design, and material usage. However, my concern is how I am going to design something that is artistically satisfying and pleasing to look at. For me, making something has often been creating a beautiful art piece, rather than producing something green or eco-friendly. On the other day, I had a guest critic from Microsoft, Bill Buxton, in my service design class. It was great to see someone who is that much experienced and also famous; however, I could not agree with him when he said, “you guys are not artists, you are industrial designers.” I get his point, but I believe that industrial designers are the subcategory of artists.


Researching and experiencing works by the Campana brothers, the winners of the Designer of the Year award at Design Miami 2008, I have found a totally new and different side of ID; it is almost exhilarating that I have met these people even through online. Their works are very unusual; each piece of their work seems to try to tell me something. Their website also has given me a feeling of watching a movie of some creation or going through a journey of an art piece from its birth to completion. Humberto Campana said during his interview,

“I think a designer goes much deeper than function or form. Today, he brings emotion, because otherwise all the chair, if we have just one chair it would be so boring. So I guess people nowadays they like to have a relationship, kind of interacting with pieces. And for me, design is to bring emotions, bring fun and bring joy to people.”

Fernando Campana also said,

“It’s that ten attempts to make function poetic and to make poetic functional which is never reachable, sometimes one is in the place of the other. Whenever both put together, at least about fifty and fifty or one tern and two terns in the projects, we make people happy, comfortable, and dreamy.”

Here I found all the answers of my questions, doubts and confusions. ID, for me, is beyond functionalism; I would like to create something that can talk to people, touch their hearts, and move their minds. Although a thing that I make may lack some functional value, I would like to start from what I believe is ID and expand it from there.