Design and Craft BA(Hons)/MDes

Design and Craft at the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts embraces a comprehensive range of three-dimensional practices, exploring the exciting creative and professional opportunities that exist in the realisation of the objects, products and artefacts that form our made world.

This highly respected course is taught by a diverse team of acclaimed designers, applied artists and makers whose leading research and collective professional experience places students at the cutting edge of contemporary creative industry. It sustains a rich, critical and creative environment, which encourages experimentation, innovation and the development of individual working methods and identity.

Professional Practice is a key aspect of the courses, enabling you to place your work within a broad range of professional contexts. You will leave this course with the skills to succeed in the creative industries and follow a long history of Brighton graduates who have become leaders in their respective fields of design, craft and the applied arts, as well as film and television, product, lighting and sustainable design, interior and architecture, trend forecasting and styling, jewellery and studio ceramics, installation and exhibition design, journalism and teaching. Our graduates have also had success beyond the design world, having taken a degree which opens their thinking to the world around them and develops a full range of professionally valuable skills.

Our graduates work with individuals and companies such as Nokia, Tom Dixon, Antony Gormley, Nike, Anish Kapoor, Studio Troika, Donna Karen, Jason Bruges, Levis, Adidas, Paul Smith, Yamaha, BBC, Virgin, MGM, Warner Brothers, The BBC, Disney, the Science and Natural History Museums, London.

Students regularly win national and international awards and feature in leading publications including The Guardian, Crafts, Blueprint, Ceramics Review and ICON. They exhibit globally at prestigious venues - recent graduates from our programme exhibited at The Design Museum, The Saatchi Gallery, The Wellcome Trust, London Fashion week, The Crafts Council, The V&A Museum, 100% Design and Milan Furniture Fair as a celebrated innovators in their own right.

To study Design and Craft at Brighton is to challenge precedent and disciplinary boundaries, to pursue excellence and innovation in the mastery and development of material practices and to demonstrate the value and impact critical creative practice has on contemporary culture, the economy, ecology and society.

Design and Craft at Brighton is concerned with the design and creation of objects, products and artefacts, their relationship to both the materials and processes from which they are formed and the role they serve in society and the wider world.

The development of objects and product proposals is based on concepts and processes acquired through materials practice, informed by the understanding and knowledge of the application of materials, their qualities and associated traditional and contemporary technical processes.

The Design and Craft subject area at Brighton offers scope for you as a practitioner to explore and evolve individual ways of working with and through materials. A thorough grounding in technique together with a research and exploration platform allows for interdisciplinary and mixed media practice.

Your evolution through the course brings out personal specialisms and encourages critical, independent scholarly and professional practice. The student journey moves through exploration of materials and a deep understanding of cultural and historical factors alongside process and technology and a grounding in contemporary design and craft issues. The course aims to develop design- and craft-conscious practitioners and thinkers ready to participate in the professional evolution of the discipline.

Brighton offers a unique materials, processes and issues based curriculum 

The programme combines the theoretical, critical-intellectual engagement with cultural, ethical and environmental issues with in-depth, hands-on experimentation and research into materials and making. This combination of theory and practice nurtures creative practitioners with the capacity to employ design, research and development skills and expertise in the manipulation and innovative application of materials to processes, products and design proposals informed by an expansive range of contextual problems (and solutions), issues and opportunities across design and craft practices.

Our students demonstrate a combination of high level materials experimentation with an equally high understanding of the role of design within a social and cultural context. The programme has a longstanding reputation for interdisciplinary research and the culture of supporting hybrid practices, cross-disciplinary methods which reflect the current professional sector which is witnessing shifting boundaries between and around design and craft. As noted in the The Wall Street Journal when referencing work by Brighton lecturer and internationally renowned designer Gareth Neal, "Craft is no longer a dirty word associated with colored tights and paisley print wearing pottery teachers... Britain still has some of the world’s best craftsmen in the form of cabinet and furniture makers, and there are enough new talents emerging for it to again become a legitimate industry. Nobody represents the modern face of the movement better than Gareth Neal."  from The Wall Street Journal April 29 - May 1 2011 article by Tina Gaudoin

Educated to become self-sufficient and life-long directors of their own creative practice, graduates deploy their skills within (and contribute to) the evolving landscape of design and craft, including product design, architecture, sustainable design, lighting, furniture, advertising, branding, packaging, media, film and television, museum, exhibition and retail design - working independently or as valued team members.

Typically, students from Brighton's Design and Craft programme demonstrate innovative thinking, strong research methodologies, are knowledgeable about contemporary issues in the field and are able to engage with all aspects of a design process.

Developments within design and craft

Craft values and processes has the ability to trigger unprecedented and unique encounters and combinations of material, technique and design which are generated in the craft process.

Contemporary Design and Craft teaching, learning and research activities are the result of the intersecting and fusion of different disciplines and technologies. Current definition of the relationship between art, craft, industry and design denotes synthesis and symbiosis as key characteristics of this age. We are starting to see fluid identities of the artist, designer and the craft-maker, and a fusion of processes and methods associated with the industrial, digital and the handmade. Transformation of practices also reflects changes in the value systems regarding environmental concerns, the habits of consumption and the way objects and artefacts are made and produced.

The definition of craft is much debated and wide ranging. Equally extensive is the range of activities taking place in the domain associated with craft, with new energy, ideas and collaborative partnerships brought to the centre ground by designers and makers.

Evolving areas of investigation brought to the foreground within design discourse include links between crafts-based practice and other research fields such as product innovation in manufacturing, rural and urban regeneration, Computer Assisted Design and Computer Assisted Manufacture (CAD/CAM), virtual reality and the sustainable development agenda.

Craft used to be the "signifier of culture‟ (cultural object – enhanced by the value of hand-made). Now this area is re-visited by designers armed with rapid prototyping/manufacturing tools of the "second industrial revolution‟ enabling them to move from mass manufacturing and standardisation to customisability of the "one-off object‟.

Design and Craft at Brighton prioritises material histories and traditions and material-technique based expertise, but these are increasingly re-focused towards development and innovation guided by relevance, judgement and social responsibility.

In a changing world, design and craft take on meaning as an important carrier of tradition and an essential source of inspiration and understanding of who we are. The combination of a unique sense of craftsmanship and an eye for artistic content emphasizes the potential of craft in the process of developing new products – and underline the necessity for research in the use of materials.

You will leave this course with the skills to succeed in the creative industries and capacity to turn ideas into fully resolved objects, products and artefacts in a range of media.

Course structure

We offer a three-year BA(Hons), and a four-year MDes integrated masters-level qualification, vocationally orientated with the latter including a work placement.

These integrate studio and workshop practice and research with historical and critical studies, and you will explore critical, conceptual and ethical dimensions of creativity as well as the commercial implications of your practice.

Professional work placements (MDes students only) and live projects are, where possible, tailored to support your individual interests, and you will gain experience with internationally renowned designers and companies, within an integrated programme of professional and business studies.

Areas of study

A broad set of themes offers you opportunity to apply a variety of design methodologies, while individual approaches allow specialization in materials and processes, from jewellery, furniture and site-specific work, and encompassing applied arts to product design.

Career and progression opportunities

This course has a proven track record of success in developing ambitious and capable individuals who sustain successful, life-long careers as creative practitioners. Within the faculty there are further opportunities for postgraduate (eg. MA Sustainable Design) or doctoral study.

Our graduates have worked with individuals and companies such as Nokia, Habitat, Tom Dixon, Antony Gormley, Nike, Donna Karen, Levis, Adidas, Paul Smith, Yamaha, BBC, Virgin, Pinewood Studios, Warner Brothers, Disney, the Science and Natural History Museums, London.

Students win national and international awards and regularly feature in leading publications including Guardian, Crafts, Ceramics Review, Blueprint and ICON. Graduates have exhibited at prestigious venues such as the Design Museum, Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery, Crafts Council, MOMA, V&A, 100% Design and Milan Furniture Fair.

Syllabus

• Design and craft methodologies
• Techniques, materials and processes in wood, metal, ceramics and plastics
• Bespoke, batch and mass manufacture
• Research and Communication
• CAD/CAM
• Options to specialize in design, craft and applied art
• Self-directed Study
• Professional Practice and Live projects
• Historical and Critical Studies

The Design and Craft subject area at Brighton offers scope for you as a practitioner to explore and evolve individual ways of working with and through materials. A thorough grounding in technique together with a research and exploration platform allows for interdisciplinary and mixed media practice.

Your evolution through the course brings out personal specialisms and encourages critical, independent scholarly and professional practice. The student journey moves through exploration of materials and a deep understanding of cultural and historical factors alongside process and technology and a grounding in contemporary design and craft issues. The course aims to develop design- and craft-conscious practitioners and thinkers ready to participate in the professional evolution of the discipline.

Level 4 units of study provide a package of introductory core study projects which aim to test student‟s ability to develop material-specific skills and to engage with fundamental ideas of Design and Craft. Introductory experiences in particular materials and processes are provided through a rotation of the four material areas on offer (wood, metal, ceramics and plastics) and parallel studio assignments. Students are introduced to the process(es) of design and making and surrounding debates linking their work to issues of sustainability and materials culture.

Students are offered introductory material/workshop experiences with the aim to give all the students equal grounding in skills, processes, material qualities and design development in the four workshop areas of wood, metal ceramics and plastics (including introductions to context, issues and the WHY question). 4-week blocks spent in each area will form a basic structure of the year which can be modified and punctuated by overarching themes and project briefs increasing in depth of critical engagement with the context of designing/making and reasoning. This is to ensure a sequence of linked experiences and themes rather than repetitive periods of skills acquisition. The suggested thematic content is broadly built around the following headlines: Culture of Making: Traditions; Consumption: Resources and Environment; Technology: Materials and Performance; Object and Context: Body, Space and Site.

Research and Communication subject area takes a role of delivering skills in visual communication and design development (drawing, representation, studio techniques such as technical drawing, model making and digital image and layout skills), and the introduction to research methods in creative practice.

Level 5 units of study will focus on the specialization in materials/processes and progressing their core practice and through a combination of research-led and issue driven projects with relevance to external developments in the creative industries.
The aim is to develop in-depth knowledge from the materials base connecting historical and traditional techniques and processes to contemporary culture and innovation. Structured projects combined with an offer of live and research-led projects contribute to the formulation of personal development plans and research questions for the self-directed study and independent project work at Level 6.
Level 6 units support the development and management of independent learning: BA(Hons) students undertake a major independent body of work in their chosen materials including a HCS dissertation. MDes students undertake an independent body of work supported by in-depth research to articulate their critical framework for the core study at Level 7, including a HCS written text and the presentation of a thesis proposal for L7.

Level 7 students will have the opportunity to undertake an integrated programme of core study and Professional Practice, including Industrial Placement enabling them to apply business theory and professional practice skills within associated industries. This final level of study brings to the realization the range of learned creative, research and vocational skills coupled with a demonstrable command of design and fabrication skills in the production of original work that responds to professional experiences and creative ambitions.

As an MDes student you have specific emphasis on industrial placement and work-related learning with opportunities to develop a range of vocational skills and knowledge. Together with interdisciplinary links across the University, the Design and Craft MDes provides an effective bridge to postgraduate and doctoral study as welbuild links and research opportunities with business and industry. Opportunities for the students to develop professional practice, vocational learning and skills for self-employment with support for placement were articulated as key elements in the revised programme.