Women In Industrial Design

10/04/2021

Congratulations to our dear friends at Advanced Design, we cannot wait for their SquareOne (SQ1) conference! Taking place this week from October 6-8th, and trust us, you do not want to miss out. 🖤

“Square One is back as an all new digital experience, allowing you to truly connect with the global design community. We believe the best way to connect design students and professionals is by putting them all in the same (and for now, virtual) room. SQ1 brings together the best of the industrial design industry for three days of seminars, panels and networking events.

We have a stacked lineup this year including diverse speakers from independent studios to footwear to the pleasure industry, and our keynote, Google’s very own Ivy Ross. We’re bringing you over 16 hours of live, interactive content, along with the professional connections you will foster throughout the duration of the conference.”


Meet the incredible speakers!

Ivy Ross of Google, *KEYNOTE SPEAKER*

Alberto Villarreal of Google

Dennice Quijano of Allbirds

Phnam Bagley of Nonfiction Design

Kevin Bethune of ArtCenter + Design Management Institute

Alex Lobos of Rochester Institute of Technology + RIT College of Art and Design

Nicole McLaughlin of Nicole McLaughlin

Pouya Ahmadi of the University of Illinois Chicago

Robert Brunner of Ammunition

Anna Lee of Lioness

Steffany Tran of quip

Josh Owen of Vignelli Center for Design Studies

Cheresse Thornhill, M.S. of adidas + Pensole

Matt Marchand of DICK'S Sporting Goods


Tickets are now live——head over to their website to purchase.

Square One is back as an all new digital experience, allowing you to truly connect with the global design community. We believe the best way to connect design students and professionals is by putting them all in the same (and for now, virtual) room. SQ1 brings together the best of the industrial design industry for three days of seminars, panels and networking events.

We have a stacked lineup this year including diverse speakers from independent studios to footwear to the pleasure industry, and our keynote, Google’s very own Ivy Ross. We’re bringing you over 16 hours of live, interactive content, along with the professional connections you will foster throughout the duration of the conference. Tickets are now live - head over to our website or link in our bio to purchase.

10/04/2021

Get SPOOKY with us! Happy from our family to yours. Join us for the month of October for some daily sketching and so much more. 💥👻💕

As our inaugural take on the month’s festivities, we have chosen these prompts for many reasons. We want to ask you to work on your sketching skills this month. We would also like you to push your discovery and knowledge of what it means to be an inclusive designer. We challenge you to design for the world of women and non-binary humans. Historically, these are products that might not have come from diverse teams.

We have thirty-one days to make some magic, and we'd love for you to join us. Tag us, and submit your sketches to participate. Don't forget to use the hashtag . We’ll be showcasing the submissions and look forward to seeing yours.

With love, WIID ♥️

Mal, McKayla, Lea,
Miranda, Jessica, Tati,
Mona, and Emily xx

10/04/2021

Another resource we can’t live without and hope you know of by now is Unif-ID .id. Created last Winter by the lovely Lindsay Malatesta as a safe space for women and non-binary industrial designers 💥💞👩🏻‍🦰

Lindsay is a Seattle-based Industrial Designer at REI and one of the kindest souls. We adore her and would love to show you why.

Written below and dated September 29th, 2021, is Lindsay’s NEW reflection of how Unif-ID came to be.

“Last year, I had been working on putting together resources for myself that I wish I’d had when I was younger. After connecting and having conversations with other women in ID, I realized that wanted to make something I really could have used in school. I wanted to create a community where those of us underrepresented in design could come together, even just to know that each other existed was powerful to me. I’m blown away all the time by the talented, supportive, and diverse community members I’ve had the opportunity to meet through Unif-ID and I’m so thankful that people are finding these tools useful. I like to imagine that if spaces like this existed when I was younger I would never have questioned my place in this field and hope that Unif-ID can do that for others.”

Follow this beautiful organization at .id, signup to join the discord and learn more at hello-unifid.com.

Love to you always, Lindsay, with love, WIID.

10/04/2021

Lucia DeRespinis ♥️ “I went back, and I thought, so what. So I changed; I went for industrial design, and boy am I glad I did.”

Congratulations to the ever-inspiring trailblazer herself, Lucia DeRespinis on her induction to the Industrial Designers Society of America - IDSA Academy of Fellows. We cannot think of anyone more deserving. Above all, Lucia is a beautiful soul whom we love endlessly.

A practicing industrial designer before IDSA was formed in 1965, DeRespinis received her Bachelor of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in 1952 as one of three women in her graduating class. She built her career in a male-dominated industry. “It was 35 to 40 years before designers really got their names—and before women—finally got their names on what they designed.”

As an icon of industrial design and IDSA member for over 50 years, and for her lasting contributions to the profession and design education, Lucia DeRespinis, FIDSA, more than deserves IDSA’s highest honor of Fellowship. Her body of work is legendary, from the midcentury clocks she designed for George Nelson Associates, to the 1959 American Exhibit in Moscow she designed with a team including Charles and Ray Eames, to the Dunkin' Donuts logo she designed using her five-year-old daughter’s favorite colors.

Lucia was a student of Rowena Reed Kostellow, FIDSA, and Eva Zeisel, carrying their legacies through her own teaching at Pratt. She started as an adjunct professor of industrial design in 1979, at the age of 55, and continued until her retirement in 2020, at the age of 93.

“My first class in industrial design was with Lucia
DeRespinis” writes Debera Johnson, IDSA, professor of industrial design at Pratt Institute. “I was a sophomore at Pratt back in 1986. She pulled the two other women in the class aside and told us, ‘You’re going to have to work harder than the guys.’ She spoke from experience.”

In March, we had the honor of sitting down to talk with Lucia about life experiences. We cannot help but grin, thinking about her legacy. She paved the way for so many women. Watch our interview with Lucia——womenidchi.com/blog

10/04/2021

We're going to do some bragging because we are so proud of our board member Tati Ferrucio! Tati did a stellar job presenting last week at the Industrial Designers Society of America - IDSA International Design Conference.

We cannot think of anyone more deserving of the IDSA Graduate Student Merit Award. Currently working as a Junior Industrial Designer at BARK for Super Chewer BarkBox and a recent graduate of the MFA Industrial Design Program at RIT College of Art and Design + Vignelli Center for Design Studies, Tati is a dedicated designer and an even better human being. Love to you always, Tati. We're beyond grateful to have you in our lives; it wouldn't be the same without you. 💞