Product Design
Product design is the discipline that connects human needs with manufactured objects. Good product design requires you to understand people, materials, processes, and markets simultaneously, and to move fluently between creative thinking and technical realisation. The objects that surround everyday life, from medical equipment to furniture, vehicles, and consumer electronics, are the result of design processes that involve research, iteration, prototyping, and testing long before anything reaches production.
Product designers need both the creative vision to imagine what does not yet exist and the rigour to make it real.
At the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, this three-year, full-time programme develops both of those capacities. You will learn to use hand drawing, digital design tools, and physical model-making to explore and communicate your ideas. You will study materials science, manufacturing processes, ergonomics, and sustainable design principles, developing the technical knowledge you need to understand how things are made and what the environmental implications of those choices are.
The programme also covers user research, branding, and the commercial context in which design operates, so that you graduate with an understanding of the full product lifecycle from concept to market.
The course includes a sandwich placement year, a year abroad, and a work placement, all of which give you direct professional experience and the opportunity to see how design practice operates in different commercial and cultural contexts. Northumbria has a strong track record of producing designers who go into industry, and the programme is well connected to the professional world.
Graduates work in product and industrial design practices, manufacturing companies, consultancies, and in-house design teams across a wide range of sectors including consumer goods, medical devices, transport, and furniture. Some graduates go on to postgraduate study in design, design management, or related fields. Others move into design management, innovation consulting, or entrepreneurship, taking their own product ideas to market.