DE6018 - Professional Design Practice

The teaching and learning on this module are structured by the ‘live’ project brief. Staged interim presentations of your project will provide opportunities for formative tutor feedback, peer review from other students and, where presentations are made to the ‘clients’ of the brief, a chance to engage with and learn from external professionals. The live project will thus provide a real world context for your studies, both as you engage in the studio with the responsibilities of professional creative practice, but also more directly, as you ‘pitch’ your work to clients and respond to their input.

both via the project briefs themselves and through the ‘live’ engagement of industry/user group during the design process.

Studio time and tutorials throughout the course of the module will prompt you to recognise, further develop and document employability skills such as your adaptability, resourcefulness, organisation and contextual awareness. You will learn to become an increasingly independent creative practitioner by evaluating your own work according to the externally set criteria of the brief, and thoughtfully responding to feedback you get along the way.

This module is supported by studio-based teaching. Peer review sessions and regular formative feedback gives opportunities to improve competences throughout the module. The framing of the project brief will also encourage personal responsibility for, and reflection upon, your own learning and professional development.

In addition to timetabled slots with academic staff, workshop access will be supported by dedicated cabinet-making, metal-smithing, machining and fabrication technical staff based in the furniture and product design workshops, for the purposes of creating prototypes to help present your design work in response to the live brief.

Tutor Guided Independent Learning/Student Independent Learning time will enable you to make constructive use of feedback received in the studio/workshop, develop your independent judgement and encourage you to direct your own learning needs. Such learning may include a range of activities such as; contextual reading; developing software skills and techniques; traditional media experimentation; photographic practice.

The module is supported by a specific virtual learning environment (eLearning Portal) where you will find all the relevant documentation (briefs, module guides, assessment requirements etc.) The digital submission of interim works for tutorial guidance and formative assessment allows for expedient communication and the effective review of work whilst also utilising industry standard practices.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

Knowledge & Understanding:

? Display evidence of critical and creative thinking, by conceiving solutions which have relevance in cultural, aesthetic, technical or commercial professional contexts.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

? Demonstrate your ability to analyse problems and opportunities, and to formulate and propose creative and appropriate solutions.
? Effectively present design solutions to professional standards.

Personal Values Attributes:

? Demonstrate highly effective and professional organisational skills as evidenced through a coherent body of project work.

Teaching, learning and assessment for this module is structured around the completion of a design brief.

Summative assessment of the module is via the submission of a portfolio of this project work at the end of block 1 (100%).

Feedback is written and given via tutorial review at the end of the module.

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As students begin level 6 of the Furniture and Product Design programme, they will have already acquired much of the knowledge, design skill and contextual awareness necessary to make valuable contributions to the world of professional design. This module gives students the opportunity to respond to a brief from a real-world context, so that they can further hone their abilities, apply an increasingly professional level of ambition and self-criticism, and develop confidence in their potential as designers post-graduation.

The module is composed of an advanced project brief selected from an appropriate national/international design competition or suitable live briefs. The studio-based teaching engages students with the criteria and requirements of the external body/client and supports them to refine professional communication and presentation skills. The ‘live’ nature of the brief sets the tone for the studio teaching—an emphasis is placed upon students’ autonomous management of the project. Students will be encouraged to work with independence as they research and understand the project’s context, and set their own goals and aspirations with regards the nature, quality and quantity of design work created. Students will, therefore, learn how to respond to a creative challenge in an increasingly organised and self-assured manner.