Program Overview

Do you want to be a design thinker? Is your goal to use a design strategy to transform businesses, cultures, and lives? Alternatively, do you want to develop your own design business? If your answer is yes, then this course is for you!

This course invites designers and non-designers to apply design thinking and business-speak to create innovative and purposeful outcomes. On this course, you sharpen your strategic edge through expanding your entrepreneurial and business capabilities. If you are a non-designer, you learn to be a creative thinker.

The postgraduate course is available as a full time (1 year), part-time (2 years), and via ‘workbased learning’ (2 years) while you remain employed.

You bring the knowledge from your past education and practice, combine them with the subject knowledge of design management, and create solutions that are not just aesthetically pleasing but also functional, viable, and purposeful. The course brings excellent networking opportunities for you to facilitate knowledge building and collaborative learning.

On this postgraduate course, we teach you the interdisciplinary issues that design managers work with, such as business, marketing, technology, and art. Immersed in practice, you acquire the skills and the confidence to manage and lead a project. You are encouraged to push the boundaries and to put forward new, improved ideas that are innovative and purposeful.

Design thinking, design strategy, creativity, research, and problem solving are applied extensively to all the modules. You undertake projects individually and in a team, where you learn communication, management, and interpersonal skills. You work with industry partners with the utmost professionalism. You pursue an industry-based inquiry, which may be a placement. And, you acquire and apply people management, client management, and project management tactics while working on industry projects and teams.

With an MA in Design Management, you are acquiring skills that empower you to apply to jobs in a diverse range of fields, and you can pursue further research by conducting a Ph.D.

What's covered in the course?

• You’ll learn from our team of commercially active staff, who ensure the content stays industry relevant. Alongside the opportunity to complete a six-week placement option, you will have the chance to work on commercial projects with established businesses. Previous projects have included working on a brand review with GKN, a FTSE 100 British multinational company specialising in aerospace.
• Tailor the programme to suit you. The curriculum has a distinctive professional focus and embraces business management, marketing, design strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, design leadership and design practice.
• Your focus will also include project management, intellectual property law and finance. There is also a strong emphasis on the development of evidence-based decision making, high level leadership and communication skills.

Why Choose Us?

• You will take charge of your learning by tailoring your education focused on your career goal and design specialism.
• You can study whilst remaining in full time employment via work-based learning.
• You can network and collaborate during a six-week industry enquiry which can also be a placement.
• You will work on industry projects from around the globe.
• You will experience innovation in real-time: You will work collaboratively with peers from other disciplines and industry partners. You will co-create and design new solutions for companies in collaborative projects.
• You will create exhibitions of your work: You have the opportunity to talk about your work to a diverse audience from different schools in Birmingham City University and outside during student-led exhibitions on the course.