History

The Department of Industrial Design has been following high-technology-oriented industrial product design education and related research and development methods since 1992. The department offers its graduates the Industrial Design Bachelor’s degree.

Izmir Institute of Technology Industrial Design Department started postgraduate education within the faculty of architecture in 1994 and undergraduate education in 2019. It is the only public school providing Industrial Design education in the Aegean Region.

Industrial Design education is tried to be continued within a structure that aims to both emphasize the interdisciplinary quality required by the age and discipline and to renew and develop in line with technological advances as a value within IYTE.

Similar to major examples around the world, the training program is structured to reveal the cultural, sociological, economic and technological dimensions of Industrial design. The bridge that is tried to be built between theoretical and practical courses in the education program is tried to be built through daily life with today’s important approaches such as commonality, integration and cooperation. Contemporary issues of Industrial Design such as sustainability, inclusive design, emotional design, and ethics in design are the main contexts on which objective or textual productions are made, which are emphasized in theoretical and practical courses in all undergraduate and graduate education processes. In education and research activities, efforts are made to contribute to design culture through these contexts and to examine the healing role of design in society and culture.

Industrial Design education is tried to be continued on an outward-looking basis, with methods such as learning by doing, learning by building, university-industry collaborations and the principle of transparency in education. Educational processes, and especially design studios, are tried to be turned into creative problem-solving processes, and with these processes, knowledge or concept turns into a phenomenon and value that the student will construct himself, rather than something transmitted to the student from outside. Design studios, which are basically carried out with one-on-one teacher-student critiques, are transformed into a richer and more outward-looking structure by including competent people representing the industry in these processes. University-industry cooperation is seen as supportive of education and research, protocol agreements are encouraged, and efforts are being made to create a corporate culture in this context. The research and education outcomes that emerge with such an understanding, whether it is a design studio or a theoretical course, are shared and made visible every semester with supporting collaborators and other possible stakeholders as seminars, juries and exhibitions. Sharing term outcomes to increase interaction and diversify learning processes has become an important tradition within the faculty of architecture. Thus, with the education and research studies carried out in this field, on the one hand, qualified academics and designers are tried to be trained, and on the other hand, a culture that is nourished through these processes is aimed.

The biggest vision of IZTECH Industrial Design Department is to train qualified designers and academicians. Its biggest mission is to add value to people’s daily lives through design, or to become a partner in such a culture, through the social, cultural, economic and technological dimensions of design. In line with this vision and mission, it continues all its education and research activities, renews, develops and changes itself.