MA/MSc Product Design
53 weeks full time or 106 weeks part time
This new course is an innovative collaboration between Manchester School of Art, Faculty of Science & Engineering and MMU Business School. The course brings together students from creative and manufacturing backgrounds to study together on projects that challenge personal approaches to product design, engage with the technical constraints of manufacturing and explore the creative use of materials and processes.
Features
Graduates will develop skills suitable for roles such as design for engineering and manufacturing, design consultancy, design management, and design research and development within industry, or within academic research and teaching. The programme will also prepare graduates who wish to go on to self-employment, establishing and running their own design/manufacturing businesses.
You will develop advanced skills in contemporary digital design and manufacturing technologies, embracing the creative opportunities they offer product designers. The business unit develops project planning and management skills, raises understanding of markets and marketing opportunities and highlights the financial factors that impact on product development within commercial manufacturing environments.
You will learn through individual and group projects, presentations and portfolios of research. You will develop a portfolio of work with reference to professional business practice, providing experience of what it is like to work in contemporary design and manufacturing environments. In addition to the project work, you will be required to reflect on your work during the year via your own blog. This will act as a key resource for your final written submission.
Assessment
You will learn through individual and group projects, presentations and portfolios of research, and will be required to reflect on your work during the year via your own blog.
Graduates
Graduates will develop skills suitable for design-led roles in industries such as engineering and manufacturing, consultancy, management and research and development within a range of industries, or within academic research and teaching. The programme will also prepare you for self-employment routes - you will learn about the practicalities and challenges of establishing and running your own product design/manufacturing business.
Location
All Saints Campus, Manchester
Unit Descriptions
Year 1
Core Units
Advanced Design Digital
The unit allows the development of a systematic theoretical and individual practical grounding in advanced digital design technologies methods, techniques and their appropriate application.
Commercial Aspects of Product Design
This unit includes topics such as market research and service design; consumer behaviour – needs and attitudes; diffusion of innovation; commercial aspects of product design including bringing product to market eg; production and distribution channels, costing and pricing, and advertising and promotion.
Contextualising Design Practice
The unit contextualises your existing personal design practice, extends understanding, and initiates the identification and development of personal design methodologies, and professional ambitions within the broad context of product design practices.
CUTE Values for Product Design
The unit extends the understanding of the complex and often conflicting requirements and constraints within the design of new products for industrial production.
Final Major Project Period
The final unit is an extended and self initiated major project period that synthesises and resolves the learning of the MA/MSc programme. It resolves and locates the personal design methodology, and with the option of live external collaboration, it aligns the project work to an identified professional ambition.
Material and Emotional Values for Product Design
The unit extends understanding of personal and emotional connections to objects, the historical and contemporary contexts of objects within society, and develops a creative approach to the use of materials and processes.
Fees
Full-time UK and EU students: £4,600
Part-time UK and EU students: £1914 per year
Full-time non-EU overseas students: £12,500
Entry Requirements (2013 Entry)
At least a second class Honours degree in an engineering or product design related discipline is usually required. EU/international equivalents or equivalent usually professional qualifications, or unclassified degrees in engineering or product design with relevant professional experience are also accepted. Other equivalent qualifications will be considered on merit.
How to Apply
More Information
Programme Leader
David Grimshaw
Senior Lecturer
d.grimshaw@mmu.ac.uk