Hasta La Ideas

Looks like Art Center will be getting a little SoCal competition. Two hours south of Pasadena is San Diego’s NewSchool of Architecture & Design, a.k.a. NSAD, and they’re launching a Product Design program in collaboration with non other than Milan’s Domus Academy.

Students at the Domus Academy School of Design at NSAD will be able to major in either Product or Interior Design, and both programs will reportedly incorporate “the Italian design approach and Domus tradition.” Students will also get to study abroad at the Domus mothership in Italy at no additional tuition cost.

“Italy has become the epicenter of design-driven brands and culture, developing a products industry that exports design all over the world,” said Domus Academy School of Design at NSAD Director Elena Pacenti. “We challenge our students to apply this foundation to projects here in San Diego and anywhere in the world.”

The Bachelor of Arts in Product Design program will be open for enrollment in 2014, but Domus/NSAD will officially present it next month on December 12th, at a joint exhibition and faculty meet-‘n-greet called “Innovation by Design.” Here’s the official course description, and some encouraging Department of Labor stats:

The product design program incorporates an updated and comprehensive definition of product that includes complex and interactive objects as well as product-service systems and experiences. It emphasizes a humanistic approach to design, sensitive to sustainable and socially responsible development, and provides students with not only the tools for “how to do” but the reasons “why to do.”

Career paths and employment for graduates of product and industrial design programs demonstrate a growing need for individuals trained in these fields. Product/Industrial designers held about 40,800 jobs in 2010, and employment of industrial designers is expected to increase by 10 percent by 2020, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

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