Product Design

Key Facts

Staff

Programme Overview

How to Apply

Institution Name: GSA
Institution Code: G43
UCAS Code: HW72

Award

BDes/MDes Product Design. All GSA degrees are validated by the University of Glasgow, a Russell Group institution in the top 1% of the world’s universities.

Assessment

Coursework, essays, practical design projects. Formative assessments take place at key points throughout the year with summative assessments at the end of each academic year.

Facilities
Studio environment with social spaces. IT facilities, rapid prototyping, plastic, wood and metalworking facility allowing 3D - physical prototypes designs to be tested, both functionally and aesthetically. Students also have access to other departmental workshops.

Graduate Destinations include
The creative industries, self-employment or in roles with commercial or public sector bodies that require the unique design skills demonstrated by graduates who understand experiences, products and services.

Programme Leader
Dr Gordon Hush

Tutors
Stuart Bailey

Elio Caccavale

Ian Grout

Mil Stricevic

Programme Overview

Product Design has been taught at The Glasgow School of Art since 1948. Over 5 decades the Department has developed a strong international reputation for producing a body of designers whose common strengths lie in the creation of products, services and experiences.

We consider our graduates social and cultural interpreters. Within their studies at GSA they engage with the creative and strategic link between technology and society to explore new opportunities for design led solutions across the private and public sector.

Unique in the UK, our groundbreaking product design degree programmes were conceived and developed at the GSA in partnership with six other leading design universities across Europe. Our students also have access to a wide global network of Universities and Design Colleges for exchanges and placements in Japan, India, North America and Australia.

The programme content, both at the GSA and its partner institutions, is delivered primarily within the design studio. This approach creates a socially interactive, yet individually driven, working practice, with teamwork & shared experience core to our philosophy. The small size of each year-group, typically 20-25 students, coupled with close & frequent contact with the tutors, creates an informal yet highly effective student-led learning environment.

In addition to design studio practice, our students also acquire knowledge of a foreign language and a grounding in the theories and methods of the social sciences. The intention of the course is to provide BDes(Hons) and MEDes students with a design-orientated body of theory and knowledge related to the socio-cultural contexts across the private and public sector.

Our staff have skills and expertise in various disciplines such as product design, service design, interaction design, social innovation, environmental design, engineering, social sciences, biomedical science and bioethics.

Our visiting faculty and honorary professors include: Clive Grinyer (Cisco) Walter Aprile (TU Delft), Colin Burns (Elmwood), Ezio Manzini (Politecnico Milan) and Federico Casalegno (MIT).

Our external examiners are: Mat Hunter (Design Council), Adam Drazin (UCL)

Graduates can be found at the following companies: Method, Engine, Seren, Seymour Powell, Participle, Troika, Fjord, Ideo, Continuum, Fuel For, The Amazings, Snook and ReD Associates.