MA Design

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Critical Review of Current Practices (Core)

This module asks you to critically discuss how your Major Project was created; how it developed via its various iterations; how it responded to broader contexts; how you turned abstract ideas into concrete design realities; and how you might take your new design directions forward into post-MA creative practice/business. The module asks you to reflect upon how all of its various facets form an integrated whole, thus strengthening your sense of having a consolidated reflective creative practice.

Design: Purpose and User. (Core)

This module asks you to critically reflect upon what you want to achieve as a designer; the why and for whom of your creative practice as a route to continued creative and professional development. It aims to aid your understanding of the role, opportunities, and obstacles inherent in the current design practices which underpin your Major Project, considered especially in relationship to its underlying values and overriding purposes.

Final Major Project (Core)

This module offers continuous support geared towards helping you with the technical, logistical, and marketing aspects leading toward the Final MA Show. It also involves ongoing discussions about how you might continue to take this work into your post-MA creative and professional development.

Project Development for Design (Core)

Providing insights into the conceptual and practical issues involved in shaping a viable design project oriented towards making, this module explores some key ideas involved in generating and developing your Major Project - such as the need for initial orientation; the importance of exploration and experimentation; the usefulness of emergent forms of project development; the need for creative balance and project viability; the necessity of clarity and good testing; the question of ethics for project development; different manifestations of creative success, and how to become fully studio-ready.

Research for Design (Core)

Expanding insights into what research and design are or can be, this module is an invitation to discuss how you might use such debates to critically (re)think about how you might turn your nascent creative ideas, viewpoints, motivations, and values into the basis for practical designing and making. It invites you to (re)frame, (re)assess, and (re)position your potential for thinking about the kind of designer you want to be. This is offered as both preparation for the upcoming MA journey and for a broader contextual understanding of developing your future post-MA creative practice/business.

Writing Design Proposals (Core)

Firstly, this module offers the space for you to develop and consolidate the specific proposals which underpin your Major Project. Secondly, it offers insights into developing generic skills in writing proposals for your post-MA creative career by understanding how to better speak to the world out there - potential funders, agents, investors, buyers, clients, and curators.

How You Study

Modes of study within the course include lectures by staff and visiting practitioners, student-led seminars, student presentations and 'crit' sessions', industry visits, and one-to-one tutorials.

There is scope to work on live projects and collaborations with industry when appropriate. You will also be asked to contribute to the MA Final Show in our dedicated exhibition space.

How You Are Assessed

The different modules which make up the programme have different forms of assessment. These include keeping a reflective journal, a portfolio of practical design work in progress, student presentations, written reports, a critical review of practice, and a final show.

How You Study

Modes of study within the course include lectures by staff and visiting practitioners, student-led seminars, student presentations and 'crit' sessions', industry visits, and one-to-one tutorials.

There is scope to work on live projects and collaborations with industry when appropriate. You will also be asked to contribute to the MA Final Show in our dedicated exhibition space. The MA Design Program also maintains regular links with current practising designers and these individuals form part of a vibrant and regular visiting lecturer series.

The MA Design program maintains regular links with current practicing designers and these individuals form part of a vibrant and regular visiting lecturer series.