MID Mission

The RISD MID program is about building a bridge between your past practices and your future place in the broad discipline of industrial design. 

The ability to think and communicate across disciplines gives our graduates unique qualifications to tackle interesting challenges in a complex world.

We explore design as a vehicle for addressing social, cultural, and environmental concerns, recognizing that design is not simply a professional service, but rather a way of connecting individual interests and values with a social framework, to provoke positive changes and impacts.

We are a broad community. The program is founded on a studio-based dialogue exploring ID in a cohort consisting of people with backgrounds such as architecture, sculpture, anthropology, film-making, set design, engineering, and science from all over the world. Our community in turn enriches its members by exposing them to a wide variety of approaches and points of view. You will learn from your colleagues as well as the faculty.

In the studio, the workshop, and the field, we explore design thinking and design practices through research, making, investigation and debate. Each graduate is expected to use their time in the program to expand their skill sets and develop their own design process which is ultimately expressed in the MID Thesis project.

The MID Experience

To support all our values, the MID program, RISD, and Brown have expansive modular structures that allow individuals from diverse backgrounds to create their own experience. The basic structure consists of: a core of Graduate level making, seminar and communication courses along with a choice of Advanced Studio and Elective courses at both Undergraduate and Graduate level. Students are able to take classes in the ID department, other RISD departments, and Brown University. The MID experience concludes with the self-directed yearlong Graduate Thesis course.