Furniture and Product Design BA (Hons)
Option for Placement Year
Option for Study Abroad
Option for Placement Year
Option for Study Abroad
Please note: our Design courses are currently being updated therefore this course is subject to validation. First entry to this course is September 2025, for September 2024 entry, please visit Furniture and Product Design.
The Furniture & Product Design course is based on the idea that knowing how to make something enables a designer to expertly explore functionality and the potential for beauty in material culture.
You will be taught to become a skilled designer, maker and to think carefully about the broader cultural, environmental and commercial context for your practice.
Formerly known as '3D Design', this course has created graduates ready to contribute thoughtful and relevant design work for over 25 years. Alumni of the programme have made an impact in a range of professional settings; designing lighting for companies like Anglepoise, developing complex furniture systems for airports, working alongside world-famous sculptors and in hundreds of other creatively rewarding settings.
You will learn within a vibrant studio and workshop-based community and be taught and assessed via a wide range of exciting design briefs.
See other courses you may be interested in: Product Design
Top Department: Northumbria is ranked 6th in the UK for Product Design studies (Guardian University League Table, 2024).
Super Satisfaction: This course has a 90% student satisfaction rate and 93% of students studying Design believed they had chance to explore ideas and concepts in depth (NSS, 2023).
Excellent Careers Prospects: Product Design at Northumbria is ranked 6th in the UK for Graduate Prospects (Guardian University Guide, 2024). This is because 87% of our graduates are in highly skilled employment or further study 15 months after graduation.
Research Power: Art and Design at Northumbria is ranked 4th in the UK for research power (REF, 2021). This is a rise of 6 places compared to 2014.
UK Fee in Year 1*: TBC
* The maximum tuition fee that we are permitted to charge for UK students is set by government. Tuition fees may increase in each subsequent academic year of your course, these are subject to government regulations and in line with inflation.
EU Fee in Year 1: **TBC
International Fee in Year 1:
TBC
ADDITIONAL COSTS
TBC
Look out for module specifics coming soon. Please keep checking this web page for updated information.
You will develop your designing and making skills, knowledge and contextual awareness through studio and workshop-based learning. The teaching is centered upon a series of creative briefs and portfolio submissions. You will be encouraged to develop a personal approach towards the critical issues in contemporary design practice and develop your understanding of what material culture could and should be like.
As you create ever more sophisticated pieces of furniture and product design during longer projects, you will learn how best to use the workshop as a venue for the creation and consideration of alternatives. You will learn to design through making, by refining the qualities of artefacts with reference to prototypes and your understanding of how those prototypes were made.
You will have the option to undertake an industrial placement year, or study abroad at a range of partner institutions all over the world.
A self-initiated Major Design Project will enable you to pursue your own interests in design. Informed by your research in the critical issues at stake in contemporary design practice, you will be encouraged to work with curiosity, imagination and ambition, to create a portfolio and collection of artefacts that demonstrate your knowledge and abilities upon graduation.
The Furniture & Product Design course has educated a significant number of successful designers over its 25-year plus history. Our graduates go on to pursue careers as designers and makers across the creative industries sector, including in furniture and product design studios, designing for manufacture, interaction design, in communications and branding and within the art world. As a student, you will develop the theoretical and practical skills required by professional practice within these fields and beyond.
A post-graduation Designers in Residence scheme supported by the course staff has also enabled entrepreneurial graduates to set up businesses, including the Deadgood furniture brand and David Irwin Studios.
As a student, you will be encouraged to consider the positive contribution you could make to the world as a designer. You will synthesise aesthetics, function, technical knowledge, making skills, social responsibility and cultural awareness through a wide range of briefs.
Commercially driven projects might see you creatively utilise a manufacturer’s technical capacities and market position. New technologies could enable you to explore innovative forms, user-interactions or new approaches to sustainability issues. Diverse ideas and aesthetics from old or overlooked sources might inspire you to define new territories in contemporary practice. You will be empowered to develop and realise your vision of what material culture could and should be like.
Staff are supportive and enthusiastic teachers as well as being active design practitioners.
We regularly contribute work to national and international design exhibitions, ensuring our knowledge remains up-to-date and can inform your education. We have recently exhibited at New York Design Week, the Venice Biennale, and at shows around the UK.
As a Furniture & Product Design student, you will benefit from generous access to studios, workshops and photography and computer facilities.
Studio spaces are set up for lectures/presentations as well as being suitable for creating sketch work and paper and card models. They will provide a base for you throughout your timetabled activities and beyond, as somewhere to share your learning experience with other students and staff.
Dedicated cabinet making, metal smithing, engineering, fabrication, 3D printing and CNC workshops are used to create prototypes. You will be inducted and supported in these spaces by specialist technicians, and work with increasing independence as your competence grows. You will make your own prototypes as part of a hands-on learning process.
All information is accurate at the time of sharing.
Full time Courses are primarily delivered via on-campus face to face learning but could include elements of online learning. Most courses run as planned and as promoted on our website and via our marketing materials, but if there are any substantial changes (as determined by the Competition and Markets Authority) to a course or there is the potential that course may be withdrawn, we will notify all affected applicants as soon as possible with advice and guidance regarding their options. It is also important to be aware that optional modules listed on course pages may be subject to change depending on uptake numbers each year.
Contact time is subject to increase or decrease in line with possible restrictions imposed by the government or the University in the interest of maintaining the health and safety and wellbeing of students, staff, and visitors if this is deemed necessary in future.
Useful Links
Find out about our distinctive approach at
www.northumbria.ac.uk/exp
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northumbria.ac.uk/terms
Fees and Funding
northumbria.ac.uk/fees
Admissions Policy
northumbria.ac.uk/adpolicy
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northumbria.ac.uk/complaints
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