MA Industrial Design

Traditionally, industrial design is associated with the improvement of goods and services through creative intervention. However, as the nature of production and consumption has changed in the face of growing social, economic, environmental challenges and technological development so has the role of the industrial designer.

This places an emphasis on the strategic competencies within the design process and requires a set of responsive and critical skills that complement the creative processes and materially informed skill sets that gave rise to the discipline.

As a pioneering course in the field, MA Industrial Design adapts to these changes continually expanding the disciplinary purview of industrial design.

On the course, you will question how, why and for whom particular goods and services are produced. You will utilise Industrial Design to catalyse change and leverage insight to inform new practices, your discipline and industry. You will question the impacts of design practice and the role and agency of the industrial designer engaging in a broad range of problem contexts. We draw on current thinking and practice in other discipline areas, including the physical sciences, social, psychology, policy design, behavioural science and environmental studies.

The course is concerned with the continued development of industrial design as a discipline and profession and will encourage you to question what industry is today. You will continually reappraise the discipline, question and develop its relevance through critical and socially responsive approaches. You will explore the application of industrial design in both market-led and societal contexts. This constant review of what industrial design is creates a culture independent of a particular style or dogma. Instead, it encourages diverse engagement, reflection, negotiation and prototyping of the discipline.

MA Industrial Design applies this intellectual development directly to design practice. It will teach you to take on strategic sustainably informed roles, identify and respond to trends, initiate design approaches and thrive in multidisciplinary teams. While the course honours the traditional legacy of the subject, we continue to reframe what industrial design is and means.

A typical graduate should have a thorough knowledge of contemporary product design and development, and be able to adopt a critical perspective on both their own work and that of their contemporaries. In addition, the emphasis on self-directed study should equip graduates with appropriate methods and strategies for successful project management both within teams and as individuals. The typical aspiration of graduates is to find work in the consulting field. Following significant shifts in this industry over the last 10-15 years, many graduates working in consultancy find themselves in roles that can be described as designer, design strategy, service innovation, forecasting, or management in addition to straightforward new product development.

The second largest area of graduate employment is through in-house design for manufacturing companies. Increasingly students establish their own studios and have moved to work in charitable organisations and the third sector. A number develop careers in commercial research and also progress to study at PhD. Graduates are now distinguished and respected designers and design managers in international companies.

Employers of recent MA Industrial Design graduates include: Plan UK, Projects by If, Mother, Catapult Satellite Industries UK, Itsu, Arup, Microsoft, Open Desk, Fitch, Tangerine, Seymour Powell, Nokia, LG, Samsung, Herman Miller, The Future Laboratory, Tangerine, Lenovo, BenQ, Acer.