Design for Industry (H7008)

15 credits, Level 5

Spring teaching

This module reflects the international nature of product design by optimising skills needed for a full understanding of the holistic industrial, technical and product design processes with their associated specifications. This includes techniques to catalyse product design, including how to locate sources of inspiration for genuine product innovation and the external influencing factors that help govern and create a successful concept.

The module will provide an overview of key design process stages for new design concept development. Subjects include historical and designer appreciation, industrial production techniques, 2D, and 3D presentation skills. In addition, there is a consistent emphasis throughout the module on appreciating the user and market contexts whilst designing for commercial and industrial customers. The module involves a series of seminars including the above that will enhance your ability to develop and present a design concept taken from an initial group project brief. The group brief will ideally be associated with an industrial partner and include an interim group visual and verbal presentation, as well as a final individual design portfolio-report presentation. All the above will extend your personal professional development, final year project awareness and later career preparedness. Where possible a related design visit will be included.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2021/22. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.