Under Graduate Diploma Programme in Product Design

Foundation - First Year Studies

"ISDI’s first-year course of study immerses students in an exploration of design and innovation concepts, skills and critical practices, training them to become flexible thinkers and lifelong learners."

The curriculum offers a series of approaches to design and enables them to envision paths beyond the confines of a single discipline. Whether a student is interested in a traditional disciplinary area, a combination of creative and academic fields, or an exploratory approach to design, the first-year curriculum is designed to accommodate a variety of study paths.

The curriculum constitutes a common experience for all incoming ISDI students, with the same set of first-year course requirements for students in all undergraduate programmes. Students shape their path of study within those requirements, selecting from the options available. The curriculum balances breadth and depth, integrates studio and liberal arts learning, and gives students flexibility in choosing how to reach their educational goals.

Classes focusing on broadly relevant design concepts, tools, and methods (including studios exploring 2D and 3D processes, drawing, and digital design as well as liberal arts seminars) bring together students who are passionate about all kinds of art and design and who will one day forge new paths in an array of disciplines. This interaction is a central aspect of the first-year experience. Today's classmates are tomorrow's colleagues.

ISDI’s Foundation Year prepares students for life as skilled and socially responsible designers.

ISDI’s foundation year will include the following subject areas: 

• Drawing and Imaging

• Design Writing and Reading

• Art and Design Methodologies

• Design Research

• History of Objects

• Space and Materiality

• Societal Energy Sources and Sustainable Systems

Future Opportunities
On completion of the Foundation Year, students at ISDI will be able to pursue 3-year globally benchmarked specialization in Communication Design, Fashion Design, Interior Design or Product Design.

Foundation Year - Sem 1

Integrative Studio and Seminar 1 - 6 credits

This course pairing brings together writing, reading, and making through projects that draw on creative and critical skills in a liberal arts and studio context.

• In Integrative Studio, students create projects that involve collaboration, cross-disciplinary activity, research, and prototyping.

• In Integrative Seminar, they develop essential reading and writing skills that help them connect text and visual elements, a practice central to art and design.

A History of the World Told through Objects - 3 credits

This lecture-and-discussion seminar traces world history through the social, cultural, technological, and religious functions of objects found in collections throughout the world and Mumbai. Readings, lectures, and field trips to museums introduce students to objects representing a span of time from prehistory up to the Industrial Revolution. Students conduct research on objects used by a society and report their findings in written form and presentations.

First-Year Studio: Space and Materiality - 3 credits

In this studio, students become familiar with the methods and tools used to investigate and manipulate space and materials. In ISDI's modelling facilities, studio classrooms, and shops, they explore form, connections between making and thinking, and properties of space and materials such as weight, texture, colour, durability, life cycle, and ecological impact.

First-Year Studio: Drawing and Imaging - 3 credits

In this studio, students explore human interaction with the visual world and create two-dimensional works using digital tools such as adobe illustrator and photoshop, drawing, photography, and mixed media. They investigate perception, representation, and culture as they record and then translate observations into visual form, organizing content, analyzing relationships, and communicating ideas.

Foundation Year - Sem 2

Semester 2 - 4Courses - 15 Credits

Intergrative Studio and Seminar 2 - 6 credits

Building on methods introduced in the first semester, this course pairs a reading and writing seminar with a studio exploring the impact of research on art and design practice. Students learn to use design tools employed by professionals in the field and undertake individual and collaborative projects that investigate how cultural values can be transmitted through art and design. Coursework emphasizes research, formal writing, systems thinking, and information navigation skills and introduces distributed learning techniques.

First-Year Studio: Time - 3 credits

In this studio, students focus on evolving concepts of time in art and design and the way those concepts shape human experience and our understanding of the world. They develop and structure narratives and shape user experiences in projects ranging from bookmaking to performance art to audiovisual pieces. media including adobe indesign and video editing software are used.

Sustainable Energy Systems - 3 credits

This course surveys, from multiple perspectives, the sources of energy that designers make use of when designing better futures. Through a combination of lectures and seminars, and fieldwork and experiments, students will be introduced to the physics, chemistry and biology of energy, and how these principles translate to the everyday experiences people have of their food, devices, clothes, rooms, buildings, transport and cities, etc. Students will learn about the issues surrounding societal energy sources, such as the pollution associated with their production and use, risks of climate change, or the challenges associated with infrastructural dependence on dwindling supplies. From a common foundation, students will be able to focus on the energy systems associated with particular kinds of designing.

Studio Elective - 3 credits

Students are provided with elective options and projects allowing them to explore specialisations they would like to take on Year 2 onwards.

Product Design - Learning Form and Function

"Cultivate the essential intellectual habits and technical skills needed to explore and integrate the rapidly expanding roles of a successful professional product designer"

ISDI’s diploma in Product Design (PD) is a three-year specialisation pursued by students who have completed their Foundation Year.

Through immersion in materials, fabrication processes, aesthetic consideration, and proactive social engagement, students of ISDI’s Product Design programme, cultivate the essential intellectual habits and technical skills they need to explore and integrate the rapidly expanding roles of a successful professional product designer.

The product design curriculum encourages lateral thinking through a range of related skill-building courses in graphic representation and material prototyping. The programme is also vertically integrated through a materials and sustainability curriculum that combines technique with ethical considerations of the chain of consequences triggered by every design decision.

Besides the core curriculum, students can choose from a diverse menu of electives including user-centered design, material innovation, ethnographic research, mass-market product design and design for the public realm.

Competitions, internships, collaborations and intensive projects, prepare students for vibrant and multidimensional careers.

Throughout the course curriculum students can focus on the following subject areas:

• Research, Design & Development

• Models, Mockups & Prototypes

• History of Industrial Design

• Process Drawing & Digital Presentation

• Computer Aided Industrial Design

• Materials & Manufacturing Processes

• Human Factors, Ergonomics & Interface

• Portfolio, Publication & Dynamic Media

Future Opportunities

As a Product Designer from ISDI, you will have a huge influence on the form, function and style of many of the objects we use in our daily lives – everything from appliances to gadgets to vehicles.

ISDI prepares you for a career in Packaging Design, Materials Design, Furniture Design, Fashion accessories (watches, bags, shoes, etc.), Toy Design, Communication Design, Interaction Design, Retail Design & Merchandising, Soft Goods, Crafts, and Technology Design.

Year 2 PD Curriculum - Sem1

Semester 1 - 5 Courses - 15 Credits

Product Design Studio 1 - 3 Credits

Aims to give students a hands?on introductory experience of basic product design problem?solving, techniques, and skills through physical exercises in iterative prototyping and testing. In this studio, the first in a six?course core studio sequence, students will begin to identify where and how design can act. Students will be working both individually and collaboratively, in a studio environment.

Models, Mockups and Prototypes - 3 Credits

Aims to educate students to shop etiquette and culture and instruct appropriate and safe use of hand and power tools/machines in construction classrooms. This course supports design?build process in core studios throughout the entire program sequence. Focus is on hands?on full?scale and scaled making, experimentation versus planning, trial error process documentation, and an introduction to rapid?prototyping and outsourced fabrication. Course work is done in construction classrooms.

Process Drawing and Digital Presentation - 3 Credits

Aims to teach the manual and digital skills that will allow students to quickly produce essential types of drawings required at each stage of the product design process. This seminal introductory course works towards persuasive and clear communication in the core studios. Work will be done individually and includes one?on?one support as well as group pin?up.

History of Industrial Design - 3 Credits

Chronicles the emergence of the field, and catalogs thinking and concepts behind the last century and a half of designed objects. Beginning post?industrial revolution, the course explores the artifacts and design systems which have richly engaged topics such as value, human?centered design, engineering and science, and cultural expression. There will be a final essay that references historical examples and envisions a near future for product design practice.

Studio Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Year 2 PD Curriculum - Sem1

Semester 2 - 5 Courses - 15 Credits

Product Design Studio - 3 Credits

Students are introduced to design as a means to communicate ideas to multiple audiences through application of product semantics—distinguishing between self?perception and how others read design artifacts. This course builds heavily upon prior learning by requiring analysis of design history, application of shop and modeling skills, as well as representational presentation. Through numerous fast paced short projects, students will explore varying degrees of development, and explore how a project’s timeframe and audience influence the degree of finish.

Computer - Aided Industrial Design - 3 Credits

Introduces two?dimensional and three?dimensional graphic software for application to sketching, testing, rendering and design control drawing. This fundamental course presents baseline software platforms from which students will continue to build upon and hone throughout their education. Building upon the introduction of rapid?prototyping done in Models, Mockups, and Prototypes, deliverables include output to 3D printer, laser?cutter, as well as price quotation drawings.

Materials and Manufacturing Processes - 3 Credits

Introduces basic knowledge of materials and processes commonly used by product designers and manufacturers at various scales of production. This course informs the core studio sequence by providing a foundation for understanding how a product works and how it can be made better, safer, and more sustainably. As a seminar, assignments will be both individual and team based, and will include a number of on?site field trips.

Introduction to Design Studies - 3 Credits

This class examines different aspects of design and visuality by looking at larger questions of production, consumption, and use and how these issues become part of a larger discourse about design and visual culture. The design process is intricately tied to visuality, or how things appear and look; thus, the course uses images to provide students with a better understanding of their chosen field of study at Parsons. In this class, students will assess the relationship between design and the visual by investigating questions about gender, spatial control, ethics, race, status, and class; and will look at a variety of theoretical, historical, social, and political writings to explore this complicated topic.

Studio Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Year 3 PD Curriculum - Sem1

Semester 1 - 4 Courses - 15 Credits

Product Design Studio 3 - 3 Credits

Aims to recognize opportunities for designers to utilize digital fabrication technologies that leverage the possibilities of the technology in order to deliver stakeholder benefits. The course has a heavy emphasis on material exploration and exercises knowledge learned in Materials and Manufacturing Processes, Computer?Aided Industrial Design, and Product Design Studio 1 and 2: Research, Design & Development. Students will be working both individually and collaboratively toward comprehending the difference between fundamental innovation and incremental change in their work as well as beginning to articulate the relationship of manufacturing/fabrication processes to larger societal contexts.

Human Factors, Ergonomics and Interface - 3 Credits

Aims to introduce basic understanding of design principles related to physical and cognitive ergonomics, as well as ethnography. This course provides the experience with user research and testing needed to enter Product Design Studio 4: Design Concepts and Applications. A seminar based course, a portion of the assignments will be done hands?on through modeling, rigging, and constructing testing props and mechanisms.

Liberal Arts Electives - 6 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Studio Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Year 3 PD Curriculum - Sem2

Semester 2 - 45Courses - 15 Credits

Product Design Studio 4 - 3 Credits

Students will conduct actionable user research—applying testing to create designed outcomes. This transitional studio bridges learning in Human Factors, Ergonomics, and Interface with previous studies around form giving and production. Students will be given the opportunity to work with outside partners or advisors and will demonstrate ability to work both individually as well as on a team. While project work will be primarily studio based, content may require off? site research and engagement.

Portfolio, Publication and Dynamic Media - 3 Credits

Assists students in identifying different methods for documenting and communicating design ideas and achievements to different audiences. This course helps students frame and present work for potential internships as well as entry into design competitions, and introduces general strategies for creating promotional materials. Media will be both digital and print and will explore static presentation such as portfolio and active social media such as through blogging, twitter, etc.

Lecture Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Liberal Arts Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Studio Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Year 4 PD Curriculum - Sem1

Semester 1 - 4 Courses - 15 Credits

Product Design Studio 5 -6 Credits

Includes participation in multidisciplinary team projects with a high degree of project closure and advanced presentation. Students sharpen prior learning employing design process in iterative, active, and analytical ways utilizing prototyping, testing, and comparative research. Projects work with outside partners and completed proof of concept(s) models are critiqued both inside and outside the university.

Pre-Capstone - 3 Credits

Students will choose from of a range of courses designed to prepare them for their capstone experience. These will stress a reciprocal relationship between independent work and class time, practice and theory, which will enable them to reflect critically on art, design and visual practices as they relate to issues of sustainability, politics, and social justice. This is an upper-level methodology, research, and writing class that continues to refine the skills and thought processes students have acquired as they progress through Parsons: presentation skills, writing skills, self and peer reflection and assessment skills, executive skills, research skills and systems thinking.

Liberal Arts Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Studio Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Year 4 PD Curriculum - Sem2

Semester 2 - 4 Courses - 15 Credits

Product Design Studio 6 -6 Credits

Develops a Capstone project that synthesizes prior program learning. Reconciling multiple stakeholders and audiences, students work towards presenting their projects as a form of social engagement, with a particular focus on user?centered design and innovation. Students will primarily work individually, but may collaborate with classmates and other programs with special approval.

Lecture Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Liberal Arts Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Studio Electives - 3 Credits

Students should explore their elective options with their advisors to create a coherent study plan.

Entrance Exam

All Candidates interested in pursuing full time Under Graduate Diploma Programmes, Post Graduate Diploma Programmes and Post Graduate Certificate Programmes are required to complete out Entrance Test known as the ISDI Challenge.

The ISDI Challenge is an adapted version of the Parsons Challenge and it helps the Admission Committee understand how a prospective student develops ideas, translates them to good design and form, communicates that , and defends the work in writing.

Fee Structure

Under Graduate Diploma Programme