The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is a membership-based not-for-profit organization that promotes the practice and education of industrial design.[1]
The organization was formally established in 1965 by the collaborative merger of the Industrial Designers Institute (IDI), the American Society of Industrial Designers (ASID), and the Industrial Designers Education Association (IDEA). However, its origins can be traced back to the 1920s, prior to the founding in 1938 of the American Design Institute (ADI), which was the predecessor of IDI.[2] Its first chairman was John Vassos and its first president was Henry Dreyfuss.[3]
The society publishes a quarterly journal, Innovation, in which Klaus Krippendorff coined the term "product semantics" in his 1984 article "Exploring the Symbolic Qualities of Form",[4] as well as books such as Design Secrets: Products: 50 Real-Life Projects Uncovered.[5]
In 1980, the society established the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA).[6]