Product Design With Professional Placement Year BA (Hons)

Birmingham City University

Product Design focuses on the creation and development of creative, contemporary, and innovative products and furniture, considering user-centred design, sustainability, social context, and commercial understanding. From ideas to production, you will be equipped with specialist knowledge and skills to help you design and develop products that address real-world challenges and enhance user experience.

Throughout your degree, you will be encouraged to explore materials, techniques, and processes, from one-off bespoke design to standardised mass production. You will learn a range of research and design methods alongside continual practical skills development. Live student projects take place throughout the course to enhance your employability, communication skills, and professional practice.

Furniture Design specialism

All students will be introduced to core modules exploring the fundamentals of designing products and furniture. You will have the opportunity to focus exclusively on Furniture Design from semester 2 of your second year, starting with the Design Focus module, before specialising further in your final year.

If you choose to specialise in Furniture Design, you will cover the same curriculum but opt for furniture-related project briefs. This option will suit those students who wish to develop and enhance their making skills through the design, development and production of furniture and related products. You will be able to explore furniture design across various production scales, from bespoke to mass manufacture. You will graduate with BA (Hons) Product Design (Furniture Design).

You will examine the process of designing and developing functional, inclusive, and sustainable products and furniture, understanding how social and cultural factors influence design decisions. You will develop knowledge of design in response to collaborative, professional, commercial, and economic considerations.

Alongside research and design development skills, you will increase your practical knowledge through extensive hands-on exploration. Engaging with making from the outset enables you to fully realise design concepts and create convincing models and prototypes. With strong contemporary design thinking, you will explore various ‘scales of manufacture’ to position yourself within a global industry.

By working on live projects, work placements and collaborative projects, you will learn how businesses operate at a commercial, technological, ethical, and sustainable level.

Professional Placement Year:

This course offers an optional professional placement year. This allows you to spend a whole year with an employer, following successful completion of your second year, and is a great way to find out more about your chosen career. Some students even return to the same employers after completing their studies.

If you choose to pursue a placement year, you will need to find a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. You will be able to draw on the University’s extensive network of local, regional, and national employers, and the support of our Careers teams. If you are able to secure a placement, you can request to be transferred to the placement version of the course.