A decade-long partnership with Room & Board, a national furniture designer and retailer, has helped University of Wisconsin-Stout industrial and product design majors refine their skills under professional mentorship.
And for the first time, a piece of furniture designed as part of an annual competition is available from Room & Board.
The design competition was created by 2010 UW-Stout graduate Brian Linehan, a Room & Board merchandise and design manager.
“The design competition started as an experimental exploration and turned into a pathway for future interns, full-time design hires, and a great way to stay connected to the community,” Linehan said in a statement.
“These days it seems like all the students know exactly who they are designing for,” Linehan said. “Students come to the project kick-off with concepts already in their heads and questions they’re eager to get answers for. It’s really been an amazing transformation.”
This year’s competition was special because it came as Room & Board was adding a coffee table designed by 2024 industrial and product design alum Micah Loder to its catalog.
Loder, now a research and development engineer at Dura Supreme Cabinetry in Howard Lake, Minnesota, said it was “incredibly surreal and rewarding” to see his class project included.
“I was really just overjoyed Room & Board saw the same vision I did when they saw the table next to their line of products,” Loder said in a statement. “Knowing any customer could walk through a Room & Board showroom and think the same thing I did when I first mocked it up: ‘This would look sweet as an accent in my living room.’”
