What is the difference between industrial design and product design?

I'm a prospective art/design school student and have been looking through catalogs and websites of various colleges. I've noticed some of these schools offer industrial design degrees, others product design degrees, and a few have both. I think I might want to try product design, but I'm not really sure as to what industrial design is and whether or not that's actually what I'm looking for. Can someone tell me what the difference between these two majors are? Examples of jobs that each would have would also be helpful.

What is the difference between industrial design and product design?
They would mean the same thing in many schools, just like you could study "graphic design" at one school and "visual communications" at another. But industrial design is actually a broader field, where you could potentially design products, machinery, cars, etc. Product design is usually focused more toward consumer products, electronics, etc. but not necessarily only that.





Basically both are looking at defining a need and creating a three-dimensional answer. It might be an issue of surface styling for an existing product or it might be conceiving a whole new item that doesn't exist. Good design and drawing skills are important. Having ability with math, geometry, etc. is important too.





There is a great website: www.idsa.org





Their resource section has good information about this profession that should help answer your questions. Good luck! It's an interesting field of study.