BA Product Design

Product Design is about shaping the world around us. Most objects, from toys to medical devices and from furniture to consumer electronics are subject to product design. This is possible because product design is a versatile process that can be applied to many different contexts. At its core, Product Design is about understanding people and how they experience and interact with their surroundings. This kind of training enables graduates to help make the world a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable place.

The BA Product Design programme supports students to identify, explore and address a wide range of design challenges through three distinct approaches. Students can adopt an Open Human Centred Design approach to conduct real world research into complex situations and identify innovative design solutions with real impact. Other students pursue a New Product Development approach that is focused on a detailed prototyping and technical realisation of their work. The final approach seeks to make us reflect on the complex contemporary issues by raising questions and manifesting new possibilities through the language of Critical Design.

This year's students explore a wide range of design briefs including the development of a closed loop farm system for refugees, furniture manufactured from bike frames, an immersive medical task trainer to simulate realistic surgical theatre scenarios and a modular packaging design to help tackle cosmetic sample waste.