First cohort of product design program sharp on all edges

Aisha Thaj explains her senior thesis project to her classmates.

On an internship at a Texas company last summer, Aisha Thaj summoned the courage to ask the CEO a question during a virtual meet and greet—a risk that landed her in his office. She wasn’t in trouble. With Thaj’s question, the chief executive realized the intern was on to something.

“Have you considered the potential of having a designer on the engineering innovation side—the concepting side,” the product design student asked.

Thaj noticed the aircraft manufacturer did not engage creative designers in its industrial design process.

“That’s really where implementing design can set you apart from the rest of the industry,” she explained amid her peers.

Intrigued by her culture-shifting idea, the CEO invited the college junior from Portage, Michigan, to unpack the possibilities.

“If you want people pushing your vision forward, designers have to be as invested in the brand as you are—in your communication teams and your engineering teams—to push each other’s boundaries,” she advised.

Ultimately, he put Thaj and another design intern she recommended with the company’s vice president for innovation to consider how her suggestion might be implemented.

By the end of the internship and with her senior year at Western ahead, Thaj had job offers from three areas of the company: engineering, marketing and product design. She chose product design and starts in July.

Thaj’s tale about how she landed her first job may be unique to her, but being sought-after as a WMU product design student is not. The first class of the University’s product design program, which is based in the College of Fine Arts’ Richmond Institute for Design and Innovation (RIDI), graduates this spring. Many of the grads have positions at prestigious companies.

Drawing on the program's transdisciplinary approach to incorporating product design with engineering and business principles, a single graduate offers companies a coveted blend of skills. That’s what industries are seeking and what gave birth to the program four years ago.

Corporate partners ask for homegrown talent

Development of the product design program was prompted by a petition from regional corporations to fill a talent void for junior designers in Michigan—the country’s No. 1 state for  product design, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Collaborating with nationally recognized corporate sponsors, such as Eaton, Stryker, Tekna and Whirlpool, the program was established to develop professionals adept at creating innovative, necessary products and solving problems using design thinking.

“At the heart of this program is the University embracing and validating our corporate partners by responding to their needs for highly skilled product designers,” says Dan Guyette, dean of the College of Fine Arts. “They were fully engaged in the program’s creation process and helped us understand what the outcomes needed to be. They made the program possible through funding, sharing expertise and hiring our students as interns and employees.”

Graduates are projected to command starting salaries between $55,000 and $65,000 a year.

RIDI and the faculty are central to students’ success. The institute opened in fall 2018 in a newly renovated 26,000-square-foot facility, featuring studios, presentation spaces and laboratories dedicated to innovation, fabrication, rapid prototyping, 3D printing, woodworking and metalworking. The program is led by a three-member faculty team: Sunki Hong is the team’s visualization expert. Carly Hagins specializes in research. RIDI Director Mike Elwell helps students focus on implementation.

“Our design institute and the faculty are super amazing,” says Nick Koch, a senior from Chelsea, Michigan. “Faculty and students from other design programs who have visited our workshops and toured our studio space say they wish they could have these types of resources and supplies available; they offer students limitless possibilities. If we have a concept, we just talk to the faculty and they help us make it happen.”

Koch has acquired a valuable set of experiences working with area corporations to round out his degree program. In summer 2020, he engaged virtually with a Stryker Corp. team looking at potential methods for delivering chemotherapy in the home environment.

This past fall, he was hired as an independent contractor by Tekna in WMU’s Business Technology and Research Park as an industrial design consultant. Well prepared to prosper in his field, he received a job offer before graduation from Stryker as an industrial designer on a medical acute care team designing hospital beds and stretchers.

Despite pandemic constraints, most of the 16 students in the first cohort completed traditional internships in a wide variety of companies, manufacturing such products as cars, furniture, shoes, toys, handbags, doors and hair clippers.

“We’ve fostered partnerships with design-centric companies across many industries, including some we didn’t anticipate, such as the automotive industry,” Elwell says. “Last year, representatives from Stellantis/Fiat Chrysler came to observe (classes) and said the curriculum was progressive and reflective of contemporary design practices.”

Teaching designers to be multidimensional Elwell says WMU’s product design program is the only undergraduate program of its kind in the U.S., offering a transdisciplinary approach that is typical of graduate-level design programs.

“We inspire our students to create products with a purpose that improve quality of life here and around the world,” Elwell says. “Students who are interested in this program want to make the world a better place through their work and careers. We specifically give them projects that are designed to create social good, such as developing products to aid people with disabilities.”

Guyette says he’s grateful for the many key people who were essential to the program’s development—from individuals, like Bill and Linda Demmer, to foundations and corporate partners, and especially the generous contributions of Jim and Lois Richmond that made RIDI possible. “All of these community partners have created power and a synergy to benefit our students, the workforce and the economy.”■