Masters Degrees in Furniture Design, United Kingdom

MA Design: Furniture is concerned with relationships between people, contexts and environments and the designed consequences. Furniture design activity in this context should be considered as a prospective and not prescriptive pursuit so the question ‘What can contemporary furniture practice be?’ is particularly relevant.

The flexible nature of the programme not only allows the development of a practice within a discreet furniture related area but also and importantly, encourages the cross-fertilisation of ideas, preoccupations and practices.

Design Network

Based in the heart of the School of Art, MA/MFA Design: Furniture is part of an innovative design network — a community of staff and students exploring design ideas in a discursive, cross-disciplinary studio environment. Critically informed practical designers, the group works experimentally, inspired by new insights and possibilities.

While studying towards a particular qualification at MA/MFA level, students experience their subject in the broader context of contemporary design practice.

Specialist Environment

Dedicated spaces for the postgraduate community have been developed to enable the postgraduate community to flourish. These spaces, for thinking and practice, are located centrally within the School of Art, allowing easy access to an extensive range of workshops where the combination of traditional and state of the art equipment opens up a world of exciting possibilities.

Course Content

The MA Design: Furniture is made up of four units totalling 180 credits.

The programme is designed to help you acclimatise to the challenges of MA level research and practice, enabling you to identify and describe a clear direction for your postgraduate design study.

You will be encouraged to develop design propositions that encompass key design issues and have complexity and ambition, taking full consideration of the relative contextual drivers.

You will also be encouraged and supported to extend your experience in the professional sphere either through a practical project, research context, exchange, work experience, or other negotiated professional set of interactions with an external partner, groups of students and creative industry.

Towards the end of the programme you will undertake a major project to consolidate your past research and practice into fully realised collections, pieces, proposals, business plans, or exhibitions – whatever means is appropriate to the work. You will also have developed a strategy for the continuation of your practice located and contextualised to the profession or discipline.

If you choose to progress to MFA Design:Furniture award you will study a further two units of 60 credits each.

This award is focussed on the continuation of your practice aligned to the research and selection of appropriate public or professional venues and platforms to disseminate a significant body of work. You will be required to produce work for a public audience in the most relevant and appropriate form along with any implicit publicity and dissemination material.

Resources

We have developed a dedicated postgraduate area occupying an entire floor of the main School of Art building, offering an exciting space to be, both intellectually and practically. The centre is located in the newly refurbished Chatham Tower with studios, design laboratories, seminar rooms and extensive workshops that form the nucleus of this vibrant, cross-disciplinary learning environment.

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This Masters programme in Product and Furniture Design recognises and prepares students for the diversity of design practice and employment opportunities open to graduates entering the design industry.

The three semester course is based at a highly rated design institution within easy reach of central London. It offers students a unique educational experience with respected contributors lead by renowned designer Sebastian Bergne.

Students are given time in an exceptional learning environment to develop their personal approach to design, learn new skills and apply them to carefully structured projects with industry partners that prepare them for their preferred career direction.

Key features
-This course is part of the Design School's Postgraduate Framework, which promotes interdisciplinary practice opportunities, underpins research, supports personal trajectory and industry contact, and includes a supporting lecture series.
-The core staff team is supported by expert full time and visiting studio tutors. These include, David Weatherhead, Julia Georgallis, Rosemary Anrude and Lauren Davies.
-The action of "making" is the signature of the course. We seek critical thinkers and makers that seek to challenge and evolve contemporary practice through the physical domain.

What will you study?

The course proposes a hands-on approach to design, encompassing research techniques, teamwork, learning through making and developing finished objects intended for craft, industrial production or conceptual prototype.

Students are expected to have a robust personal approach with direction and purpose reflecting their own area of study. Students are required to be self-directed, reflective and practical in approach. The course is studio and project based. Activities can include specialist lectures, workshop inductions, group and personal tutorials, seminars and symposiums.

Assessment

Assessment will be made at the completion of each module. Module marks are added to achieve a total final mark. Assessment will be made through practical design projects, presentations, main masters project and exhibition.

Course structure

This course is part of the School of Design's postgraduate programme.

The structure – shared with students from the Communication Design MAs, Fashion MA, and Sustainable Design MA – enables you to explore your individual specialist interests within an integrative learning environment that provides a comprehensive understanding of the value and role of interdisciplinary methods and ways of working. The influences and impact of thinking from other related design subjects on your own specialist study is an important aspect of the identity and the community of interdisciplinary practice at masters level in the School of Design.

This structure is designed to help progress and develop your independent learning, encouraging you to construct and explore projects concerned with areas of particular personal interests. The overarching course philosophy, based upon an emphasis on research, methodology and design thinking, allows individual and personal concerns to be explored through focused study in product and furniture design.

The two shared modules of the School of Design's Postgraduate Framework both commence with a symposium, in which high-profile external speakers present their work and contribute to a debate on a topic of relevance to all courses in the Framework.

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Introduction

This course focuses your practice on an industry sector and broadens your career and research horizons. Your chosen project becomes a vehicle for developing your creative abilities and analytical skills, and for locating your work in the professional world.

Content

MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery is part of the Product, Ceramic and Industrial Design programme. Ceramics, furniture and jewellery design share rich cultural histories and traditions of practice. Each is concerned with what can be described as 'intimate architecture' - a physical relationship of the artefact with the body.

The role of design practitioners is changing as a result of emergent technologies, global marketing, the internationalisation of production, and a rising interest in a 'bespoke approach' or 'craft content' within design.

Designers need to be able to think creatively and strategically about the identity of products and their cultural backgrounds and to support their ideas with innovation, commercial thinking and ethical questioning. MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery (by Project) develops your creative abilities, imagination and expertise in relation to real design world demands by linking formal design approaches with practice-led research.

The postgraduate course is achieved in the context of your own personal project, explored and developed according to your individual pathway choice, in a stimulating, supportive, creative and collaborative environment.

Structure

MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery lasts 60 weeks structured as two consecutive periods of 30 weeks each (i.e. two academic years) in its 'extended full-time mode'.

MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery is credit rated at 180 credits, and comprises 2 units. Unit 1 (60 credits) lasts 20 weeks. Unit 2 (120 credits) runs for 10 weeks in the first year and 30 weeks in the second year.

Both units must be passed in order to achieve the MA, but the classification of the award of MA derives from your mark for Unit 2 only.

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This is a radical post-disciplinary programme for practitioners who want to push the boundaries of what design can be and do. On this MA we work with you to transform your practice as a critical and social undertaking. By challenging the role and norms of traditional design towards an emerging type of ‘advanced design’, unshackled from the history of specialisms and entrenched methods, you will become part of a community of practice. You'll be encouraged to actively contribute to a deep understanding of how design is set to address and affect change within contemporary society.

You'll choose to situate yourself within one of six thematic Studios, each with a distinct identity:
•Cities & Urbanism
•Communication & Experience
•Fashions & Embodiment
•Innovation & Service
•Interaction & Technology
•Participation & Politics

Your learning will centre around projects, which you'll investigate alongside fellow students, faculty and visiting experts. The Studios are spaces where we encourage you to materially experiment, question your practice, evolve new design languages and engage with contemporary discourses, with the aims of tackling the new contexts of consumption, production and possibility.

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Our Creative Industries & the Creative Economy MA programme bridges the gap between creativity and business. This unique business degree programme enables you to combine specific creative practice and skills with a rigorous business education customised for the creative industries. It has been developed by academics and creative economy practitioners at Kingston Business School to help you respond to emerging trends and opportunities to realise value in the creative economy.

The programme is designed for individuals who come from creative industries, or have graduated in another discipline, including engineering and humanities. You will need a strong motivation to look beyond the traditional boundaries of your discipline, a readiness to participate in a start-up, and a willingness to work in a multi-disciplinary and experiential environment. You will work with students from all over the world and from different creative sectors. This diversity challenges you to think differently and exposes you to differing perspectives on creativity and business.

The programme now has nine generations of graduates and an active alumni network. Our graduates work in a range of creative and leadership positions ranging from freelance work in the creative sector, through to business ownership and employment in large innovative companies in the creative economy.

The creative industries are outpacing traditional industries both in the UK and the rest of the world. In the UK, the creative industries represent 5.2 per cent of the UK economy and provide 1.9 million jobs (DCMS, 2016). With the growth of the creative industries, the creative economy has grown at a rate faster than the whole of the UK economy, and was worth £133.3billion in 2014, accounting for 8.2 per cent of the UK economy (DCMS, 2016).

An increasing number of countries has now placed the creative industries at the heart of their economic development. This creates opportunities for professionals who understand the critical success factors for commercialising creativity, and are equipped with the mix of creative and business knowledge and skills.

What will you study?

This unique business degree programme enables you to combine specific creative practice and skills with a rigorous business education customised for the creative industries. By the end of the programme, you will be equipped with an in-depth knowledge, understanding and skills required to successfully realise value in the creative economy context.

You will specialise and become closely involved in the practice of a specific creative industry through engagement with a real business in the creative sector. This will be the opportunity to experience practical work and realise value in a chosen creative industry:
-Advertising and marketing
-Architecture
-Crafts
-Product design, graphic design and fashion design
-Film, TV, video, radio and photography
-IT, software and computer services
-Publishing
-Museums, galleries and libraries
-Music, performing arts and visual arts

(Creative Industries Classification, Department for Culture, Media & Sport, 2015)

You will also explore the process of collaborative creativity and examine what it takes to successfully develop ideas into innovative products, service and processes. The core of the programme is a real-life business experience; working in a team, you will start and run your own creative industries business in the supportive and risk-free environment provided by Kingston Business School. Our entrepreneurship experts will guide you through the process of designing and running your own creative business, which will help you develop your creative, managerial and entrepreneurial skills.

Assessment

Assessments are innovative and include a mix of individual and group project work and formal assessments, including essays, case studies, reports and presentations, role-play, games and simulations, plus the final Personal Research Project (maximum 15,000 words). You will study in a supportive environment where regular feedback is provided by both academics and professionals.

Why study the Creative Industries & the Creative Economy MA?

The course gives you the opportunity to gain a range of knowledge, skills and experiences:
-Develop your creative, entrepreneurial, managerial and leadership skills – participate in development of a start-up, pitch to real industry experts at our "Dragons' Den", and engage with a variety of professionals and entrepreneurial businesses.
-Experience practical work in a chosen creative industry by engaging with a real creative industries business to develop your CV and your understanding of the creative sector.
-Learn the fundamentals of business management theory and practice from the specific perspective of the creative industries, in the diverse and evolving context of the creative economy.
-Experience regular visits from industry experts and entrepreneurs, field trips to entrepreneurial businesses and events such as Frieze Art Fair that connect the creative industry to the local community and enable you to build a valuable network.
-Experience excellent teaching – the Creative Economy MA course is ranked as one of only six UK Eduniversal Best Masters in -Entrepreneurship. It is also ranked as one of the best entrepreneurship masters in the world by the Eduniversal masters ranking 2015/16, and Kingston Business School is one of only a few of the 120 UK business schools to be awarded an 'excellent' rating for its teaching quality by the Higher Education Funding Council.
-Earn a degree with prestigious international accreditation – Kingston Business School has joined an elite group of global institutions to be awarded the prestigious international accreditation by the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). A hallmark of excellence in business education, the accreditation has been earned by just 5 per cent of the world's business schools.
-Finish the course with an international network of contacts – the programme has an active alumni network and our students come from all over the world to study the course.

Will this course suit me?

The Creative Industries & the Creative Economy MA is designed for individuals who come from creative industries, or have graduated in another discipline, including engineering and humanities.

-Are you a creative practitioner? We will give you the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in creating a product or service and taking it to markets.
-Are you a manager in a creative business? We will help you understand the processes of managing creativity and innovation and enhance your skills as a creative leader with a good grasp of strategy and appropriate business and management skills.
-Have you got years of experience? If you have substantial experience, you could benefit from undertaking the personal research project that will help you to apply your new skills and expertise to your specialist sector and enable you to identify new opportunities in the creative economy.

Course structure

Below are the core modules for this course:

Modules
-Mapping the Creative Economy
-Design Thinking for Start-ups
-Experiencing the Creative Industries - Professional Practice
-Conducting Collaborative Creativity
-Managing a Creative Business
-Personal Research Project/Gaining Insights

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