Art Center College of Design
The Challenge
The Art Center College of Design is on the cutting edge of industrial design. The product design curriculum at Art Center helps students think visually and creatively as they learn design fundamentals and hands-on techniques for bringing new products to market. In the past, advanced CAD design programs were too expensive and complex for the majority of industrial designers and students to use. Industrial designers were limited to using sketches and 2D drawings to convey their concepts to production engineers, sacrificing subtlety of form and ergonomics in the process.
The Solution
Recognizing the trend toward greater affordability and ease-of-use in CAD software, Art Center chose SolidWorks after evaluating a variety of 3D design tools on the market. Only SolidWorks met the institution's requirements for an easy-to-use CAD system that was capable of modeling complex surfaces and organic forms. Within the first year of using SolidWorks, the students had completed close to 100 different projects. SolidWorks was easy to use, so the students could learn it quickly and produce a greater quantity and variety of projects in less time. Approximately 250 students in the industrial design program now use SolidWorks. In addition, students in fine arts, graphics, and packaging are now beginning to learn and use SolidWorks.
