Designer Founders is a community of designers who invest in designer founders through mentorship, funding, and access to their network. After a designer applies for an investment, the Designer Founder community evaluates and selects applicants to invest in.

Funding comes from sources such as Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, KPCB, 500 Startups, KKLD, Venture51 and Quest Venture Partners.

Every six months Designer Founders looks to invest in a balanced mix of designers across three stages: prototype, alpha and beta.

How would you like to spend 3 months in Japan exploring and soaking up the rich Japanese culture? The US Japan Friendship Commission offers a three month residency program for artists and designers and the next deadline for 2013 Residencies is March 1, 2012.

This study provides an overview of industrial design education and compensation in the USA for industrial design courses.

The last time IDSA released any study material on industrial design education compensation was in 1998 as a three line table in the design compensation study of that year. For 2010 we have revised the format, included all levels of educators and support staff and provided breakdowns for private and state schools.

File attachments: 

2010 Education Survey.pdf

Who earned what?

Are industrial designers paid more or less than other designers? Is that the same for consultants and corporate design staff? How do industrial designers get rewarded for good work?

This is IDSA's 14th edition of the Compensation Study. It's the first first survey release since 2006, and for this year we have changed the format and the scope. In order to better recognize the multi-disciplinary nature of today's design office, we have included salaries and information on all design and non design positions, not just industrial design.

How is the business of Industrial Design developing?

Through 2010, IDSA gathered information covering a total of 86 designers from 48 consultancies and 19 corporate design departments, including the top five consultancies on how they saw the design business changing and what they felt about the prospects for business going forward. The results make interesting reading and confirm a number of trends that we all probably suspected but did not know for sure!

File attachments: 

2010DesignBusinessTrends3.pdf

21 February 2011 

The professional practice committee of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) has issued a statement to industrial design consultancies and their clients condemning the practice of free pitching, in which design work is presented as part of the process to win a contract.

Contract Terms and Conditions Reference For Product Design Consultants

The 2004 Terms and Conditions Reference for Product Consultant Design Firms endorsed by the IDSA includes the latest legal thinking on the most pressing contract issues facing our industry including Ownership of Intellectual Property, Indemnification, Limitation of Liability and Warrantees.