MA Product Design

OVERVIEW

This course is at the forefront of production design and manufacturing practices. It brings together students from creative and technical backgrounds to foster original approaches to product design for manufacture, supporting you to explore and develop personal design methodologies and philosophies, and locate these within a deep understanding of historical, contemporary and future design practices, and wider social and cultural contexts.

You will undertake Core units delivered by production design specialists, consisting of design theory and practice lectures, material and manufacturing workshops, group seminars, individual tutorials, live external projects, and research study trips. Practical design development is supported by extensive hand and machine workshops for wood, metal, ceramics, glass and plastics, and digital workshops for laser cutting and large scale CNC routing.

Optional units facilitate innovative cross-disciplinary opportunities, supporting the development of collaborative working with students from within the material making and manufacturing cluster of MA Craft and MA Textile, and across the wider postgraduate design community. There are cross-faculty options to study within the faculty of “Science and Engineering”, acquiring advanced 3D CAD skills for industrial production, and utilising the latest advanced 3D printing processes. The “Manchester Metropolitan Business School” option addresses commercial aspects of design, enabling students to locate their ambitions within a defined financial model.

You will able to explore and challenge all aspects of product design, embracing opportunities for innovation across markets and production levels, from one-off making and batch fabrication, to flexible digital manufacture and high volume industrial production.

Your programme of study is managed through personal learning plans, developed in response to your individual creative and professional ambitions. The final “Synthesis” unit determines the postgraduate award, with the MSc reflecting work that has a more technically and functionally innovative focus, and the MA for work that addresses more materially creative or culturally focussed agendas. This innovative structure provides students with the opportunity to convert their practice from BA to MSc, and vice versa.

CAREER PROSPECTS

Graduates will develop skills suitable for employment in design, and design management roles, in manufacturing and consultancy. Skills in research and contemporary design philosophies also lead to opportunities for roles in academic research and teaching.

The programme also prepares graduates for self-employment routes – developing business knowledge in support of the challenges inherent in establishing and running your own product design and manufacturing business. Students will also achieve PgCert and PgDip awards during this course.