More than Just Making — Announcing the 2016 UIC Industrial Design Student Kickstarter Campaigns!
The maker movement has done amazing things to allow anyone to bring their ideas to life. The access to automated manufacturing tools, shared workshops, and communities to support making is at an all time high. It’s an amazing time to be a maker. But making is just the first step to experiencing entrepreneurship.
As part of a year long “Entrepreneurial Product Development” (EPD) course at the University of Illinois at Chicago, 18 design students have launched their first Kickstarter campaigns for products they have designed. The class is taught by Craighton Berman, a designer that has launched 4 projects on the platform.
The EPD course is framed as a year long immersion in “design-entrepreneurship”—a type of entrepreneurship that puts emphasis on ideas and making to create and launch products. More can be read about the source in the class syllabus and on the class blog.
Last semester was framed around the concept of “CREATE”—the students defined, designed, and sourced their products, and then worked to create their campaign. Each week we spoke with a guest designer (via Skype and in-person studio visits) to learn about their experiences first hand. Guests last semester included —-. This semester is themed “SCALE”, and is focused on the next level of design entrepreneurship, and will feature guests from Cards against Humanity, Gramovox, Strand Design, The Experience Institute, Kickstarter HQ—and many notable guests to come.
The most exciting news of all is that the students have all finalized and launched their campaigns on February 4th 2016, and will be running them through March 4th 2016.Â
The 18 projects range from limited edition handmade objects to limited run mass production, but all projects have each individual student running every aspect of their campaign. With much excitement I present the project links:
Steven Krejcik - Weathered Notebooks
Hamsel De La Cruz - Muse Pencil Case
Andie Kimura - ___Shift : image frame
Patty Stalonczyk - B2 Wall Binder
Paulina Kordek - Salad Serving Set
Gabriela Gentile - L O C U S
Ashley Villagrana - Petmego
Ruggero Gonzalez - Ório One
Alexander Cruz - Super Saturn
Peter Graff - Curb Stone (coming soon)
Gabe Chorabik - PUCA Tool (coming soon)
Ryan Blackmon - CHOPÂ (coming soon)