Design Products

Candidates are selected entirely on merit and applications are welcomed from all over the world. The selection process considers creativity, imagination and innovation as demonstrated in your portfolio, as well as your potential to benefit from the programme and to achieve high MA standards overall.

For MA Design Products, you should have a good undergraduate degree or equivalent in an area of design, or related background and proficient written and spoken English. Several years of professional experience, either before or after a first degree, is a benefit, and you must be able to demonstrate critical and innovative thinking, a design curiosity and the ability to thrive in student led projects.

Applications are welcomed from candidates from related backgrounds, such as engineering, architecture, communication, sports science, medical/health, international development/NGO, economics/business, material science, technology development and user experience.

Design Products develops students to be creative, innovative design thinkers supporting them on the journey to develop their own design identities. Design Products embraces a pluralistic approach to design through a number of design cultures through which students develop their design identify and own design culture. These cultures represent current discourses within the discipline and can be, for example through Making or understanding Design for Manufacture, Object Mediated Interactions, understanding Design as a Catalyst, Exploring Emergent Scenarios through design or, addressing and shaping future discourses.

Design Products enables students to conceptualise and validate ideas by canvassing, provoking, challenging, and questioning people, places, technology, things and systems. Design Products is educating students to be design-thinkers who can address real world challenges through balancing high levels of creativity and technical capability with contextual insight and empathy for people and, understanding and shaping future discourse. Through team and individual projects tutored by practising designers and design researchers and engaging with external partners, students develop their own design culture whilst building a portfolio of work that will locate them in their desired professional context.

For the portfolio, there are 5 slots, each can hold multiple files - the overall limit for the portfolio is 20 pages, you do not need to fill all 5 slots. Please show different aspects of your work and capability, whether from your professional, education or personal practice and with at least one individual project. Remember to consider how your uploaded work will appear to the viewer. We would be looking for the criteria below, please make it clear what we are looking at by labelling the work accurately. We would suggest 1 PDF per slot, rather than individual pages, it makes it easier for the staff team to review the work.

1. Evidence the ability to envision projects; realisation, making, coding, physical or digital. Evidence of good communication skills, to represent concepts and insights.
2. Evidence of intellectual content and conceptualisation. Demonstrate High levels of creativity.
3. Evidence of innovative and critical thinking, this can be through system, artefact, insight or product.
4. Evidence your working practice, i.e. the process in which you make work.
5. Demonstrate high quality work in documentation of applicant’s process and reflection on what was learned or could be better.
6. (Desired) Industry or professional experience in the field, this can include internships, business outputs or learning from parallel industries.