Program Overview

The Product Design MA is part of the School of Art and Humanities MA Art & Design Suite, an innovative approach to postgraduate taught education that brings together disciplines from across art and design to produce a collaborative programme of courses that foreground the shared practices, processes and values of art and design in the 21st century.

This course has a practical application of 3D Design and encourages you to turn concepts into forms, and forms into real-world objects.

This course aims to expand your undergraduate base by encouraging you to engage with more advanced and trans-disciplinary approaches to design development, material technologies, fabrication processes and manufacturing techniques, including an exploration of advanced 3D digital technologies in our Phidias Lab that contains cutting-edge digital tools essential as part of a 21st century toolkit.

You will develop a greater understanding of design practice, learn more about research methodologies and have the opportunity to explore advance design techniques, emerging digital technologies to enhance your skillset. You will also have routes to improve your knowledge of user interface design, enterprise, business, collaborative design, medical design, advanced 3D CAD application, Class A Surfacing, Simulations, Virtual Reality, Additive Manufacturing.

The aims of the course are to:

• Encourage your confidence in your academic and creative potential through mastering core 3D Design knowledge and understanding through practice at the forefront of your discipline.
• Develop innovative and imaginative approaches to materials, processes and methodologies in 3D Design, and rigorously test these ideas against current trends within the creative industries.
• Experiment, expand and encourage progressive and ethical thinking in the practices of 3D Design to meet future industrial and commercial demands.
• Provide a postgraduate teaching and learning experience exploring the opportunities and challenges of 3D Design in the contemporary world, based on the professional and research strengths of the School's highly qualified and experienced staff.
• Enable you to evidence awareness and relevance of your practice in relation to professional standards in product design, such as through developing and demonstrating highly developed research and manufacturing skills addressing design challenges.

The course enables you to develop knowledge and understanding in critically appraising the importance of social, technological and cultural dimensions of product design as applied to your own and others practice. Including its emerging and future trends such as, but not limited to, commercial product design and its impact on individual and community well-being. You will develop skills to plan, negotiate, and implement the creation of coherent outputs underpinned by advanced practice and research in product design.