Course summary

Do you want to a socially responsible creative making innovative designs? On this course you’ll discover how to craft products from scratch, taking them from scale drawings to the final prototype. You’ll lean towards an environmentally aware and technologically innovative approach, supported by a sound understanding of cultural and critical insight and user behaviour. This course is also offered as a four-year programme, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme. Why study at Buckinghamshire New University? With a history of delivering expert craft, art, and design education for more than 130 years, Buckinghamshire New University is the perfect place to start your creative career. This rich history mixed with contemporary teaching techniques and hands-on learning, makes this course unique. Led by a dedicated teaching team with a wealth of experience within the product design, model-making, and design visualisation industry, many of your tutors on this course are still involved with design practice and research. Not only will you benefit from a rich and varied programme, you will also have direct access to guest lectures, live project briefs, master classes, and plenty of networking opportunities with industry professionals. With London only a short journey away, and access to a range of business and organisations relevant to product design, there are ample opportunities for visits to sites of historical and contemporary interest. What facilities can I use? We’ve invested in workshops that replicate those you’ll find in industry. We keep on top of the best equipment, using professional facilities and software for your designing needs. You’ll get hands-on with our industry standard 3D CAD systems, and benefit from our workshop facilities to produce 3D models, fully working prototypes, and computer models to demonstrate your design solutions. In these workshops you’ll be able to experiment with a range of different materials including wood, metal, ceramics and mixed media, developing traditional hand skills and working with new technologies such as our MetraSCAN 3D and utilising the latest CNC machining and techniques. You’ll explore different solutions for several areas, engaging with live industry briefs as you use your expertise to create products with a purpose. We also have specialist technicians and demonstrators on site to support and share their knowledge with you. What will I study? This degree course offers you the opportunity to successfully design innovative and functional products that include a successful interface between products and users. You’ll become a multi-disciplinary designer who have a focus on sustainability within Product Design. You’ll adapt and work on a range of different products for different industries, whilst gaining hands-on knowledge on how to work with materials, processes, components, and products to meet user requirements. During your time studying this course you’ll develop and grow as a sustainable designer with advanced design knowledge and skills. You’ll use your new learnt knowledge to consider, incorporate and communicate your knowledge and apply your skills in the professional development of sustainable products, both 3D and 2D. By working through a sequence of challenging projects, you will acquire a wide range of creative and technical skills, which enable you to complete sustainable design projects from the stages of consultation and research through to final product presentation. You’ll learn how to communicate an idea from concept, to functioning product. Upon graduating from our sustainable product design course, you’ll be in a position to follow career ambitions within the profession or progress to postgraduate studies.