Course summary

This adaptable course is designed primarily for students from either an Art and Design or Technology with Design background who wish to follow careers within the design (product, industrial) and design-making industries (to encompass ceramics, metal and jewellery) or who wish to teach in either Art and Design or Technology with Design, or want to undertake further design-related studies at Masters or Doctoral level. The course provides stimulating and challenging practice-based education for the designer and designer-maker within a multidisciplinary studio environment with fabricating and prototyping at the core of the curriculum. There is access to metal, jewellery, ceramics and wood workshops, and 3D printing facilities. The emphasis is on design (wood/ plastic) and design as making (clay/ ceramics and metal/ fine metal), so manufacture and material manipulation are very important with maquettes, concepts and testing as key parts of design creation and product development. State-of-the-art metal, jewellery, wood and ceramics workshops with full technical support offer facilities for fabrication and manipulation of soft and hard materials, as well as applied skills for metal and plastics. Practice is informed by a strong culture of contextual understanding and critical writing and reflection. Students will engage in multidisciplinary work-based learning through collaborative projects and industrial placements underpinned by teaching in professional practice, strategic business thinking and entrepreneurship. Product, ceramics, jewellery and metalsmithing are the course pathways comprising designer and designer-maker strands. The goal is therefore to produce design and making graduates who are critical thinkers, fluent communicators and informed and highly-skilled makers who have the requisite technical, intellectual, creative and entrepreneurial skillsets to contribute in a valuable and meaningful way to the creative industries offering social solutions to real world issues which include being a furniture or spatial designer, lighting and homewares designer, a designer for education, or ceramicist, metalsmith or jeweller. The ceramics pathway, for instance, equips the student with all the skills necessary for a career as an independent maker or as part of a team. The ceramics workshop allows students to develop their practice with teaching and technical support from experienced staff in a technically high-end environment. As with all workshops, the focus is on new and evolving technologies and traditional 2D and 3D processes that are appropriate for industrial manufacture. The workshop is fully equipped to support traditional and digital processes with materials and equipment perfectly suited to the individual maker and designer in contemporary ceramic practice. The studio features all elements necessary for ceramic design for industrial batch or multiple manufacture and individual production. There is a dedicated throwing area for wheel-based ware with full mouldmaking facilities. There are also wood and metal workshops with technical and academic staff supporting the product design, and metal and jewellery strands. There is access to 2D and 3D printers and the course itself is across two floors of the Belfast campus, in close proximity to the above workshops, allowing for interaction and cross-overs of ideas, materials and expertise.