As a product of the industrial age, industrial design has gradually become more diversified and more multi-disciplinary, and it is now catered to multi-demands. It has gradually become an indispensable part of all industries as well as in people’s daily life along with the prosperity and development of material culture and the progress of science and technology. However, there is a lack of comprehensive and quantitative research in this field. In this study, the Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny R packages are used to analyze the development history and current situation of 2535 industrial design papers in the Web of Science core collection database from 1925 to 2021 to reveal their research hotspots and predict future development trends. The results show that: (1) In the past 96 years, the number of published papers and annual average citations of industrial design continue to increase. (2) 83 countries/regions have scientific research output in the field of industrial design research, and developed countries have strong research strength in this field. China, the United States and Italy are the top three countries in terms of literature output. In addition, among the 6625 authors, the top three authors were WANG Y, WANG YF and WU Y. (3) The top 3 keywords in the field of industrial design are “system/systems”, “optimization”, and “performance”. The research topic can be divided into three stages. In the first stage (from 1925 to 2003), scholars explored industrial design from the two aspects of “performance” and “simulation”. In the second stage (2004-2017), the research content of industrial design is gradually enriched, mainly in the aspects of “model”, “optimization”, “ dynamics”, “innovation” and “technology”. The third phase (2018-2021) focuses on “system”, “optimization”, “ behavior” and “innovation”. Overall, “optimization” and “innovation” have been among the core issues in the field of industrial design from 1925 to 2021.