The Ohio State University Department of Design has recently been ranked third nationwide in undergraduate industrial design programs, and tenth nationally in the graduate program category. The rankings come from the 2008 design “scorecard” posted by DesignIntelligence, a magazine published by the Design Futures Council (DFC). DFC is a consortium of international design and architecture companies and their management and several institutional affiliates. They organize different conferences, think tank sessions, seminars, etc in addition to several publications. The stated goal of DFC is to understand and disseminate information regarding trends, opportunities, pedagogy and technology related to industrial, interior, architecture, and building technologies.  Ohio State trails number-one ranked Art Center College of  Design (Pasadena) and the University of Cincinnati.

For this ranking (the 9th annual ranking done by the group) DFC polled 270 corporations regarding how design schools were preparing their students for the future of professional practice in design. They used what they call "durable, objective and respected" criteria that focuses on recruitment and hiring preferences of these companies. They looked at hiring statistics and performance after hiring. They assessed the rankings on a regional level first, then on a national level. They looked at seven skills assessment subcategories, the scores of which were combined to get the final ranking. These subcategories (and our undergraduate ranking) included:

• Research and analysis (OSU ranked #5)

• Design, creativity and problem solving (OSU was in the second five, which were not individually ranked)

• Materials, processes, and engineering related issues (OSU tied for #3)

• Ecodesign practices and principles(OSU was in the second five, which were not individually ranked)

• Collaborative learning with business, engineering and other disciplines (OSU was not in the top 10)

• Studio skills, sketching to CAD (OSU was in the second five, which were not individually ranked)

• Overall Academic balance (OSU tied for #3)

OSU was in the top ten rankings of the corporate leaders' assessments in all regions (#4 in the south, #2 in the midwest, #7 in the east, and #4 in the west). Our graduate program placed at #3 in the south and #2 in the east, resulting in 10th overall in the nation. Last time rankings were compiled, the undergraduate industrial design program at Ohio State was not ranked in the top 10; the graduate program was ranked number-seven.