Master of Arts in Product and Furniture Design with Professional Placement

at Kingston University London - Kingston School of Art, Knights Park United Kingdom

This course recognises the diversity of design practice and prepares you for employment within the design industry.

You'll be given time to develop a personal design approach, learn new skills and apply them to carefully-structured projects with industry partners, that prepare you for your preferred career direction. The course requires you to challenge yourself, your perceptions of design and your role as a designer.

Live client projects are an integrated feature of the course providing valuable industry experience; recently the course has worked with brands including MADE.com and Tefal. We additionally encourage independent external collaboration. You'll work in an enviable learning environment that includes newly-renovated studio spaces and workshops supported by attentive academic and technical staff.

Faculty-wide technical resources available to students include the 3D workshop with ceramics, big build, woodworking, metalworking, blacksmithing and bronze-casting; CNC, Laser, Zund, 3D print, state-of-the-art filming environment and animation suite; industry standard photographic suite with two new digital darkrooms; newly-specified digital media workshops with hardware and software upgraded to a professional level.

This course will help you to develop the skills and knowledge required to operate as a project manager in the creative industry.

If you are a creative practice graduate who understands making and production processes and, you would like to perfect skills required to lead and design projects, then this is the course for you. Or perhaps you're a mid-career creative practitioner, who wants to develop your commercial and operational skills and understanding but, need to contextualise your learning within the collaborative manner of creative projects? If so, then this course is also for you.

Creative careers are varied, full of change and frequently project-based, so developing project management skills, at postgraduate level, is a huge advantage.

On this course you will also study for a professional Agile PM Practitioner certificate. This certification is accredited by the Agile Project Management Group and is internationally recognised. The inclusion of such a widely recognised certification process in the programme is to further enhance your career and employability prospects.

The Photography MA at Kingston School of Art is highly bespoke course designed to support you as an artist working with the photographic as an expanded and interdisciplinary practice through practice-led research.

With an emphasis on critical thinking and socially engaged practices it offers transferable skills in the production and post-production of images through the communication and development of ideas

You will develop a major body of practical work for exhibition and publication over the 17-month course in a supportive and dynamic environment culminating in a final show at Kingston School of Art.

The course encourages a rich interdisciplinary approach that crosses the boundaries between different forms, disciplines and subject matters that engage with the expanded definition of the photographic medium (analogue and digital, new media and technology, still and moving image, installation; performance and the archive).

This course prepares you for a career in art direction in the creative industries. You will develop practical, conceptual and analytical skills in visual communication to create effective advertising and visual identities for organisations and projects.

You will learn to visualise, collaborate, experiment and project manage as you work on real-world projects with other students and industry professionals. You will also develop your knowledge of the creative industries, exploring topics such as design thinking, branding and strategy for creative organisations. You will have creative freedom and be encouraged to undertake non-commercial creative projects.

You'll also have lots of opportunities to work on live projects with creative companies and institutions, as well as being able to work with your classmates in our student-powered creative agency, Studio KT1.

Throughout the course you'll also develop the commercial and organisational skills and understanding needed to work effectively in the Creative and Cultural sector.

Kingston School of Art offers a stimulating environment for the postgraduate study of Illustration. Kingston University has some of the best fabrication and visual process workshops in the UK. This enables the most exciting innovations in ‘thinking through making'.

The Communication Design: Illustration MA course, offered through the highly-regarded Department of Illustration Animation, aims to develop creative professional understanding of Illustration in the context of communication design.

The course is structured to challenge you and your preconceptions about both illustration and design. It places an emphasis on the patterns of research you develop and the visual methods you employ to explore and unravel briefs. You will be expected to demonstrate how you research and develop your ideas. In this context, research is not only a working process it can also be considered an outcome in its own right.

This program asks you to examine: what, how, why and who as key factors in design thinking. This represents a shift from the traditional definition of design and illustration as a problem solving activity to a placing the focus on problem finding. The course encourages the exploration and understanding of the methods and processes at work in contemporary illustration.

This course has been designed to enhance your long-term employment possibilities through an appreciation of the changing global, technological and social context of illustration and design. It includes the option of a one-year UK work placement, enhancing your experience and connections in industry. This type of assessed placement is not available on any other postgraduate courses.

We have been ranked in the top 25 Fashion Schools in the World, and one of only three in the UK, by Fashionista, the influential and trusted source of fashion news. View the 2019 rankings.

Our Fashion BA (Hons) degree is ranked no. 1 in London for Fashion in The Guardian University Guide league table 2020 and was one of  a handful of worldwide institutions to have been awarded four badges of excellence by the Business of Fashion (for Best Overall, Best in Global Influence, Best in Learning Experience and Best in Long-term Value).

The course focuses on evolution and radical change in design. You will explore how design is influenced by cultural, social, critical and historical studies.

You will develop your own signature style, experimenting across sketch work, 2D to 3D, knitwear and digital print in Kingston School of Art's workshops and dedicated fashion design studios. You will also have access to our working dress archive which includes pieces from 1750 to the present day, including the recently acquired Sibling knitwear archive. Our curator also works closely with Bath Fashion Museum.

Our strong industry links mean you will learn to apply creativity to the real-world and will be industry-ready on graduation.

Kingston School of Art offers a stimulating environment for the postgraduate study of Illustration. Kingston University has some of the best fabrication and visual process workshops in the UK. This enables the most exciting innovations in ‘thinking through making'.

The Communication Design: Illustration MA course, offered through the highly-regarded Department of Illustration Animation, aims to develop creative professional understanding of Illustration in the context of communication design.

The course is structured to challenge you and your preconceptions about both illustration and design. It places an emphasis on the patterns of research you develop and the visual methods you employ to explore and unravel briefs. You will be expected to demonstrate how you research and develop your ideas. In this context, research is not only a working process it can also be considered an outcome in its own right.

This programme asks you to examine: what, how, why and who as key factors in design thinking. This represents a shift from the traditional definition of design and illustration as a problem solving activity to a placing the focus on problem finding. The course encourages the exploration and understanding of the methods and processes at work in contemporary illustration.

This course has been designed to enhance your long-term employment possibilities through an appreciation of the changing global, technological and social context of illustration and design. It includes the option of a one-year UK work placement, enhancing your experience and connections in industry. This type of assessed placement is not available on any other postgraduate courses.

The aim of the User Experience Design MSc course is to equip you with the behavioural theory, design practice and technology know-how that is necessary for a career as interaction designer, usability engineer, user researcher, or head of user experience. It focuses upon the analysis, design, prototyping and evaluation of multimedia, multi-modal, and multi-platform user interfaces that are easy to use and support a great user experience.

Each taught module guides students through a UX project – to optimise an interaction, to innovate a digital lifestyle, to create a persuasive product, and to collaborate on the development of virtual reality. Each project provides opportunities to analyse, design, prototype and evaluate cutting-edge technologies, follow industry trends and apply contemporary theories. A final "capstone" project completes the student's portfolio.

This course was developed in consultation with our industry panel, which includes Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, DreamWorks and Samsung Design Europe. Kingston University is an active member of TIGA, the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) and supports the User Experience Professionals' Association (UXPA UK).

This course prepares you for a career in exhibitions and events in the creative industries. You will develop practical and analytical skills for the curation, conception, resourcing, marketing and budgeting of an exhibition or event.

You will learn to visualise, collaborate, experiment and project manage as you work on real-world projects with other students and industry professionals. You will also develop your knowledge of the creative industries, exploring topics such as design thinking, branding and strategy for creative organisations. You will have creative freedom and be encouraged to undertake non-commercial creative projects.

The course also offers opportunities to work on live projects with creative companies and institutions, as well as alongside your classmates in our student-powered creative agency, Studio KT1.

Throughout the course you'll also develop the commercial and organisational skills and understanding needed to work effectively in the Creative and Cultural sector.

The aim of the User Experience Design MSc course is to equip you with the behavioural theory, design practice and technology know-how that is necessary for a career as interaction designer, usability engineer, user researcher, or head of user experience. It focuses upon the analysis, design, prototyping and evaluation of multimedia, multi-modal, and multi-platform user interfaces that are easy to use and support a great user experience.

Each taught module guides students through a UX project – to optimise an interaction, to innovate a digital lifestyle, to create a persuasive product, and to collaborate on the development of virtual reality. Each project provides opportunities to analyse, design, prototype and evaluate cutting-edge technologies, follow industry trends and apply contemporary theories. A final "capstone" project completes the student's portfolio.

This course was developed in consultation with our industry panel, which includes Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, DreamWorks and Samsung Design Europe. Kingston University is an active member of TIGA, the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) and supports the User Experience Professionals' Association (UXPA UK).