Short answers, pulled from the story.
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features in advance of manufacture. As an applied art, it focuses on a combination of aesthetics and user-focused considerations.
The first use of the term industrial design is often attributed to the industrial designer Joseph Claude Sinel in 1919, though Sinel himself denied this in interviews. The discipline predates 1919 by at least a decade, and the earliest published use of the term may have appeared in The Art-Union on the 15th of September 1840.
Engineering focuses principally on the functionality or utility of products, whereas industrial design focuses principally on aesthetic and user-interface aspects. Industrial design is considered an applied art, while engineering design is an applied science. In the United States, engineering programs are accredited by ABET and industrial design programs by NASAD.
Industrial designers use methods such as user research, sketching, comparative product research, model making, prototyping, and testing. The process is iterative, often involving dozens or hundreds of ideas. They commonly use 3D software, computer-aided industrial design, and CAD programs, and may build prototypes from paper, balsa wood, foams, or clay before manufacture.
Industrial design rights are a form of intellectual property that grants exclusive protection to the visual appearance of products that are not purely utilitarian, and a design patent falls under this category. The Locarno Classification, established by the Locarno Agreement of 1968, categorizes designs, and the Hague Agreement administered by WIPO allows a single international application covering up to 100 designs across member countries.
Famous industrial designers include Raymond Loewy, who created the Royal Dutch Shell logo and the PRR S1 steam locomotive, and Charles and Ray Eames, known for the Eames Lounge Chair. Others include Alvar Aalto, Dieter Rams, Oskar Barnack who developed the Leica, Luigi Colani, and Sir Jonathan Ive, who designed many of Apple's recent products.
In 2022, about 1.1 million industrial design applications were filed worldwide, a decrease of 3% on 2021 and the first drop in filings since 2014. In 2023, the number rose again to about 1.19 million applications, with top Hague applicants including Samsung, Procter & Gamble, and LG Electronics.