MDes Design

Develop a critical understanding human activity’s impact on this planet, and the intentions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Learn how to be more sustainable in your own design practice, and how to use the power of design to influence other people to live more sustainably. Explore sustainability through a variety of lenses such as climate action, reversing poverty, good health and wellbeing for all, gender equality, affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, life below water and more.

Apply your design skills to address one of the many important global challenges in SDG. Aim to win a University Sustainable Futures Prize through your work in trying to make the world fit for future generations.

Develop a comprehensive understanding of approaches to design research, techniques and methodologies that can be applied to your own work, or advanced scholarship. Learn the importance of self-directed continuing professional development, as a normal means for creatives to innovate and push their boundaries and to stay at the forefront of a fast-changing creative world.

Learn how to make a brand stand out in an increasingly a micro-attentive world. Capture attention across different media and platforms including social media. Understand and experiment with key design approaches such as micro-content and snackable design, interactive and immersive experiences, multi-sensory branding, brand storytelling and associations and more. Develop a deeper understanding of brand personality, tone of voice and maintaining authenticity.

Apply your design knowledge and skills to an exciting branding project and document your creative journey through a module journal/design diary.

Experiment with a range of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and new technologies designed to generate text, images, video, sound, computer code and other key outputs. Gain a critical understanding of the copyright and ethical considerations in the use of AI. Develop a robust understanding of how AI tools and new technologies can be used ethically in the process of creative design, without replacing the need for human expertise, decision-making and ingenuity. Apply your developing skills with AI to creative outcomes.

Gain the critical knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to lead and manage design-driven initiatives in various industries, fostering innovation, and driving business success through design. Gain insights into strategic design thinking and the leadership and management of design.

Develop an understanding of practical applications by learning from real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful design management practices. Understand some of the key considerations and issues around intellectual property and copyright.

Recognise some of the issues around managing teams and external partners, and better understand the role of a designer in the bigger picture of the design process. Use your creative design skills to explain or illuminate important aspects of design management to a non-specialist audience.

Gain the critical knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to lead and manage design-driven initiatives in various industries, fostering innovation, and driving business success through design. Gain insights into strategic design thinking and the leadership and management of design.

Develop an understanding of practical applications by learning from real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful design management practices. Understand some of the key considerations and issues around intellectual property and copyright.

Recognise some of the issues around managing teams and external partners, and better understand the role of a designer in the bigger picture of the design process. Use your creative design skills to explain or illuminate important aspects of design management to a non-specialist audience.

Develop a critical understanding of the role and power of design to change hearts and minds, perceptions and behaviours, and create real impact on society. Develop your study skills and research methodology. Investigate and critically evaluate how key approaches to design for social change have succeeded or failed in your own specialism, in past and contemporary work.

Identify important societal or global issues that you are passionate about, and apply what you’ve learned to develop your own ideas, concepts and creative designs for a project that will help make the world a better place.

Gain a critical understanding of strategies to maximise the chances of interview and employment including common shortlisting processes, and key interview questions and responses. Critically evaluate approaches to self-employment and the pros and cons of different types of structure. Understand some of the key profit/loss, tax implications and impacts on lifestyle, of being employed or self-employed.

Develop strategies for identifying employers or clients that would value your style of work and those you would like to work with. Fine-tune how you describe your skills and knowledge and align it to your ideal career path.

Gain a critical understanding of what constitutes good self-promotional materials in differing contexts, such as showreel, portfolio and online profile. Understand the power of interaction with your audience and plan to harness unpaid promotion and advertising. Learn the language of self-description, that allows the highlighting of strengths while avoiding appearance of arrogance.

Apply your advanced skills to design self-promotional materials that will give you the best chance of gaining the kind of work that you aspire to do as a career.

Research and critically analyse key design practitioners, design movements, styles, theories or design history in their contexts. Gain an awareness of some of the principles of the decolonisation of design. Evaluate areas of design theory or history that are particularly relevant to your current design practice.

Produce artefacts (posters, motion design or whatever best suits the message) which illustrate the principles of that history/theory and thoughtfully critique the work or communicate how that work is relevant to your current or emerging practice.

Gain a critical understanding of what a ‘design manifesto’ is, and how these have been used, or have been influential through history. Reflect on your own ethos or philosophy about the role and practice of design in the world. Reflect on your own values, beliefs and motivations as a designer. Create your own new design manifesto. Discuss ways of promoting your manifesto to diverse audiences and the intended impact that you would like to see from its dissemination.

Critically understand how implementing the practices from your own personal philosophy of design, could be a roadmap to becoming who you want to be as a designer, and making the kind of positive impact on the world that you aspire to.