Magazine of the Week

Welcome back, everyone!

Innovation is the publication of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). It comes out 4x/year and it is published at the organization’s headquarters in Herndon, VA. The organization began publishing this title in 1982. The library subscribed to it shortly after FIT began to shift its overall design focus towards sustainable environments and lifestyles in the late 1990s.

 

The IDSA was founded as an advocacy and support organization for industrial designers. Membership is free and comes with some pretty nice perks: the organization supports student groups and design-related education initiatives, advocates for designers’ recognition and fair wages, offers scholarships and conferences.

In addition, IDSA gives a series of annual International Design Awards, offers members domain names at the .design domain, and puts out Innovation magazine 4 times/year. The organization has also helped put ecodesign into the forefront of American design over the last 20 years.

 

 

 

 

The magazine itself is elegantly designed, with quirky, striking cover images, fashionably minimalist page layouts and sans-serif type. The fall issue presents the annual Design Excellence Awards. The other three issues of the year often have themes and related guest editors. Recent issues included one focused on design in business and women in design. The content highlights interesting design of all sorts, with short vignettes on cool projects by people at experience levels from student to award winner.

Come take a look!