Time to read: 5 min
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field of industrial design is expected to grow in the next eight years, and with an average salary of$ 64,000a year (closer to $90,000 a year in San Francisco), the field is promising, with great job security and financial stability. Design thinking is taking center stage as a creative way to solve problems in the corporate sector and in people’spersonal lives。
Product designers inhabit a versatile career field with multiple paths, but which one should you choose? The three career paths most industrial designers take are:
- 成为公司的内部设计师
- 自由职业者作为设计师或经营设计工作室
- 通过创建产品并成立公司来成为企业家
根据您的目标和愿望，这三个途径在个人实现方面可能会产生重大差异。让我们看一下每条路径，探索与每种路径相关的不同考虑，挑战和特权。
Path #1: Join a Company as an In-House Designer
Many industrial designers spend their entire careers working for companies in a salaried position, often at some of the most successful companies in the world, like Microsoft, Nike, and Sony, or at a design firm, like IDEO or Whipsaw. According toFast Company，在一篇有关美国针对工业设计健康的全国艺术捐赠报告中的文章中，大多数受薪工业设计师从事制造业或专业，技术或科学服务方面的工作。
The benefits of being a salaried employee at a company, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company or a startup, are:
- You’ll have a reliable salary and benefits, with set hours.
- You’ll have the opportunity to move up the career ladder, into a manager, director, VP, or C-class role.
- You’ll get the chance to work for some of the top companies in the U.S. and world.
- You’ll be able to solve challenging problems via design, in a focused way.
- If you love design, you’ll be able to focus your entire role on that, rather than management, manufacturing, payroll, etc.
The drawbacks include:
- Your projects are given to you rather than chosen.
- 您需要使用公司的流程和方法。
- The product belongs to your company (or your client), rather than you, so you do have to toe the company line.
Path #2: Freelance Design
For those who have worked for a large organization for several years or prefer the flexibility and variety of working with multiple clients, freelancing can be a great way to leverage your design skills and control your own time and projects. According to the NEA report,30％的工业设计师是自雇人士, and we expect that number to increase. Whether you work for a design firm as an individual contributor or as a consultant for a larger company, or even run your own design studio, working on your own gives you immensefreedom。
自由职业的积极方面包括：
- 您可以控制时间表 - 工作时间和工作数小时。
- You’re almost always treated as an expert designer, and as a consultant, you run your own show—no supervisors, only clients.
- 您可以从事多个不同的项目或一次将您的承诺限制为一个项目。
The challenges of freelancing include:
- You’re in charge of your own invoicing and taxes.
- 你需要购买自己的利益或way to get them elsewhere (spouse, domestic partner, parent).
- 您需要定期鼓起新业务。
- Your salary may be high, but it might not always be steady.
- Unless you’re running your own firm, you won’t necessarily move up the hierarchy, so if you want to manage a team or move into a VP role, the route is less clear-cut than it might be at a company.
- Some clients can be challenging, as can juggling multiple projects.
Path #3: Entrepreneurship
您可以渴望独自工作到一个新的水平，并进行识别市场并设计满足其需求的产品的过程。您可以围绕您的产品和制造，营销和出售它组成一家初创公司。
The best things about entrepreneurship are:
- You’ll get the experience of being a CEO, while also being closely involved in the actual product design.
- You’ll have ownership over your own company and product(s), a momentous achievement.
- Kickstarter使产品更容易找到受众并自我维持（甚至很快获利）。
- 其他资源（例如3D打印和制造咨询公司）提供了企业家并不总是拥有的支持。
- You’ll have the freedom to pursue your unique ideas and bring them to fruition.
The most challenging parts of running a company are:
- Failure is a distinct possibility. Even though the path is easier than before, running a startup is still complex and stressful.
- You’ll need to handle accounting, payroll, and employee benefits.
- You’ll need to hire, manage, and pay employees.
- 您将负责自己的制造，运输，分销等。
- You’ll have to think about funding for your startup and/or how to become profitable.
- 时机并不总是正确的。如果您要还清贷款或为房屋节省贷款，或者您还没有找到合适的业务合作伙伴，那么等待实现自己的梦想可能是有意义的。
工业设计是一个蓬勃发展的领域，充满了激动人心的机会。确定适合您的道路的最佳方法是现在考虑您最想要的工作状况。列出列表后，将其与我们在此处包括的利弊进行比较，看看您是否属于一个类别或另一个类别。然后，考虑一下要采取特定途径需要做的事情：建立出色的投资组合，寻求财务建议，寻找业务合作伙伴，发展更强的营销技能，并参加课程，进行一些阅读或网络来发展这些技能或寻找人来帮助您。
Main Takeaways
In all likelihood, you won’t remain in one role forever. Plenty of designers leave companies to launch their own products and then grow those products into a business, or freelance for years and then join a design studio. The key is to take the pulse of where you are at this moment and where you want to be, and then take steps to move into a new role, if that’s what you feel is the right path for you.
