What is industrial design? Definition, history, and key principles

Industrial design is the practice of designing products that are made in series — combining function, form, ergonomics, and manufacturability so an object works well, looks considered, and can be produced at scale. It emerged with mass production in the 19th century and shapes nearly everything around us, from furniture and appliances to phones and cars.

Industrial design is one of those disciplines you experience constantly without naming it. The chair you’re sitting on, the lamp beside you, the handle on the door — each was shaped by someone deciding how it should look, feel, and function while being manufactured repeatedly. That decision-making is industrial design.

What is industrial design?

Industrial design is the professional practice of designing products intended for mass or batch production. It resolves how an object looks, how it’s used, and how it’s made, so that the final product is functional, usable, manufacturable, and visually coherent.

The discipline sits at the intersection of engineering, art, and business. An industrial designer answers practical questions — Will it stack? Can it be welded? Does the hand fall naturally on this grip? — alongside expressive ones about proportion, material, and form. The Industrial Designers Society of America defines it as the practice of creating products and systems that optimise function, value, and appearance for the mutual benefit of user and manufacturer.

How is industrial design different from other design fields?

Industrial design is distinguished mainly by one constraint: the object must be reproducible. A unique sculpture or a one-off bespoke commission isn’t industrial design; a product engineered to be made hundreds or thousands of times is.

• Versus craft and fine art: craft produces individual objects by hand; industrial design produces a template for a machine or a production line to repeat.
• Versus engineering: engineering ensures the object works and is safe; industrial design also governs how it’s experienced — its form, ergonomics, and meaning.
• Versus graphic or UX design: those disciplines design images and digital interactions; industrial design works in three dimensions and physical materials.

The mass-production requirement is what gave the field its name and still defines it.

A brief history of industrial design

Industrial design was born from the Industrial Revolution. Once factories could produce identical objects in quantity, someone had to decide what those objects should look like and how they should work — a role that hadn’t existed when every object was made by hand.

• 19th century: the shift to mechanised production created the need. The 1851 Great Exhibition in London put mass-produced goods on display and sparked debate about their quality and appearance.
• Early 20th century: the Bauhaus school in Germany (founded 1919) fused art, craft, and industry, arguing that well-designed objects should be made for everyone, not just the wealthy. Its credo that form follows function became foundational.
• Mid-20th century: figures like Raymond Loewy in the United States and Dieter Rams at Braun in Germany turned industrial design into a recognised profession and a commercial force. Rams’s products defined a clean, functional aesthetic that still influences design today.
• Late 20th century onward: computers, new materials, and global manufacturing expanded the field, and sustainability and user experience became central concerns.

The key principles of industrial design

Good industrial design tends to follow a consistent set of principles. The most influential articulation is Dieter Rams’s “ten principles of good design,” which holds that good design is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough, environmentally friendly, and “as little design as possible.”

Distilled for everyday use, the core principles are:

1. Function first. The object must do its job well; everything else serves that.
2. Usability and ergonomics. It should fit the human body and be intuitive to use.
3. Manufacturability. It must be producible at the intended scale and cost.
4. Material honesty. The form should respect what the material is and how it behaves.
5. Aesthetic coherence. Proportion, line, and finish should feel considered, not arbitrary.
6. Durability and sustainability. A well-designed product lasts and wastes little.

Why industrial design matters

Industrial design determines whether a mass-produced object is a pleasure or a frustration to live with — and whether it lasts. Because the decisions are multiplied across every unit produced, getting them right has outsized consequences for usability, cost, waste, and longevity.

Dieter Rams captured the stakes plainly: “Good design is as little design as possible — less, but better.” A product designed with restraint and respect for the material tends to age better, function more clearly, and waste less than one designed for novelty alone.

Industrial design in furniture

In furniture, industrial design shows up as the marriage of a manufacturing method and a form. Tubular steel furniture, for example — pioneered by Marcel Breuer at the Bauhaus in the 1920s — was only possible because bent steel tube could be produced industrially, and its look came directly from that process.

At NM3, this lineage is explicit. Working in stainless steel means designing with the realities of laser cutting and dry assembly built into the form from the start — the industrial-design principle that the object and its making are one decision, not two. The studio leaves the steel raw and unpolished, so the marks of cutting and the mechanical joins stay visible: the manufacturing method shows in the finished piece rather than being hidden.

Frequently asked questions

What does an industrial designer do? An industrial designer develops the form, function, ergonomics, and manufacturability of products made in series — researching users, sketching and modelling concepts, choosing materials, and working with engineers so the object can be produced well at scale.

Is industrial design the same as product design? They overlap heavily and the terms are often used interchangeably. “Industrial design” traditionally emphasises physical, mass-produced objects and their manufacture, while “product design” is sometimes used more broadly to include digital products and the full development process.

Who is considered the father of industrial design? There’s no single figure, but Raymond Loewy is often called the father of modern industrial design in the United States, while the Bauhaus and Dieter Rams are credited with shaping its principles and aesthetic in Europe.

What is the difference between industrial design and craft? Craft produces individual objects made by hand, where each piece is unique. Industrial design creates a design intended to be reproduced identically through manufacturing, so the output is many copies of the same considered object.

---

Written by NM3 Studio — a Milan design studio working exclusively in stainless steel, founded by Nicolò Ornaghi, Francesco Zorzi and Delfino Sisto Legnani. Last updated August 2026.