Elizabeth Spencer ’21 is an industrial design major, member of Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and the current events coordinator for the student run chapter. Spencer was also the first non-architecture student in the role of technical manager with AIAS architecture group who manages the 3D printing lab. As Spencer recounts, “I’ve always loved 3D printing – I have a mini 3D printer and wanted to learn more so I met the person who was the president of AIAS at the coffee shop Mike Chappa. They never had anyone who wasn’t in architecture be a manager, so I volunteered at first, and then ran for technical manager. I had to fix the printers, manage the logistics of having materials on hand for the printers and figure out the budget. I was also the only non-architecture student on the board of directors of AIAS from 2017-2019.”
Spencer shared some perspectives on what industrial design is, “When I became an industrial design major I didn’t know what industrial design was. Industrial design is really art and science, wanting to improve the experience of people with their products, bridging the areas between how they are developed, the conception of it, to full on production. Industrial design encompasses all of that. It’s art in the sense no one wants an ugly product, art can be interpreted as the making, but it is not just a pretty sketch. Science because there is a lot of making a product isn’t always about making it look good. The science of it is in the engineering, math, physics of how all the pieces have to come together, understanding how a product will be used and how it will be made."
