Course summary

This highly flexible Masters offers you either a broad MA Design qualification, or a choice of six specialist MDes qualifications in Graphic Design, Illustration, Fashion, Textile Design, Interior and Spatial Design, or Product Design. This new MA/MDes Design will help you develop your creativity and grow into a more adaptable, resourceful and collaborative designer. It looks to the future of design and the big challenges facing global society and equips you with the core knowledge, skills and competencies you will need to face the uncertainties of the next few decades. The programme has been designed to prepare you for the challenges and opportunities provided by changing industries, economies, cultures and societies, and to develop a personal practice which makes a positive contribution to that future. Throughout the course, you will have regular professional development seminars, critiques and concept panels, where you will review your work with fellow students, academics and professional partners, and have the opportunity to review and readjust your practice and professional direction in the light of that feedback and reflection. You will be learning from a multidisciplinary teaching team made up of academic and technical staff with expertise in critical practice, experiential design, interior architecture, fashion and textiles, illustration, animation, graphic design, and product design. You will be exposed to a wide range of perspectives and approaches, which enable original and exciting work. As a postgraduate student, we will encourage you to join our Civic Lab research group, which focuses on how participatory culture, creative dialogue and experiential design can be used for social impact — particularly in the City of Derby. It considers how we build communities, and how we create the conditions in which those communities can sustainably develop, innovate and thrive within the social, economic, environmental and cultural challenges of the 21st century. Through this and other research groups, you could get involved in a wide range of multidisciplinary creative research activities, working with external cultural partners, public, commercial and third sector organisations, educational institutions and international networks.