Industrial Design

Design education; strategic value of design product development - USA and international; automotive design
 

Martin Smith graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio, USA, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Industrial Design in 1972 and started a career in industrial design.  In 1978, he became a Senior Designer of Ron Loosen Associates, California, USA, which is a well-known design consulting firm in Southern California serving the computer electronics industry and, several years later, assumed the role of Managing Partner of the company.  Martin embarked on his academic career as an Instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Extension in 1981, while he remained actively engaged as an independent design consultant.  In 1983,  Smith joined Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California as an Instructor and later advanced to Associate Chair in the Industrial Design Department in 1987.  He was appointed  Chair of the Product Design Department of the same institution in 1991, a position he held until recently when he resigned to become Chair Professor of Industrial Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Art Center College of Design has been consistently ranked as the leading school in USA by the Design Intelligence Survey and the Wall Street Journal..  Under Martin's guidance, his product design students have received 42 Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards from the competitions of “International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)” of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and the “Annual Design Review” of the International Design (ID) Magazine, which are the two most prestigious and rigorous design competitions in the USA.

As well as a design educator, Mr Smith is also as an independent design consultant who has overseen many design projects for various eminent automotive companies and designed products for internationally known companies. Coca-Cola, Berol Prismacolor, Reebok, Burton Medical Products, Playtex, Avery Dennison are just a few of the companies he designed products for. In 1985 Smith, just thirteen years after his graduation, became Vice President of Automotive Projects for Charles W. Pelly at DesignworksUSA, now a BMW company, one of the most influential design consultancies in USA with clients around the globe. Projects for clients completed during his tenure included General Motors,Corvette, Subaru, Volvo, Mazda, Chrysler, Magna International and others.

Professor Smith’s research interests is in the relationship of industrial design and business and the role of sustainability in the education of students becoming responsible designers.  He has published many articles in business journals and has delivered numerous invited lectures about design education and the strategic value of product design development both in USA and around the world.  He has been a judge of  well-known design competitions - such as the "IDEA Excellence Awards" of IDSA,  the "Annual Design Review" of ID Magazine, at the "Design Review" of the Museum of California Art and the International Design Resources Competition in Seattle. 

Martin Smith has won a number of design awards that include receiving a Silver Award of IDEA of IDSA in 2004 and Gold and Silver Awards in 1998 and he holds numerous US and international patents for his designs and inventions.  In addition, he has licensed half a dozen products  to major companies for manufacturing and distribution.