Design Perspectives

Course Overview

This course introduces the student to a wide range of perspectives and points of view on design as a human activity in a series of topics that each frame design with a differing focus. It engages the student with a rich mix of theories, principles, practices, and histories that constitute various understandings of design across cultures. It exposes the student to the influences, accomplishments, and possibilities of design in the world.

Through appreciation, curiosity, and engagement, the course initiates an intellectual investigation of what it means to develop design practice, aligned with the aspirations and intentions of designers and intended audiences.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional/Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include: 

A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, and in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative

Further information on the structure of summative assessment elements can be found in the Summative Assessment Briefs.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.   

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books

• Greenfield, A. (2018). Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life. Verso
• Johnson, S. (2015). How we got to now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World. Riverhead Books.
• Mareis, Claudia, & Paim, Nina. (2021). Design struggles: intersecting histories pedagogies, and perspectives. Valiz.
• Sparke, P. (2013). An introduction to design and culture: 1900 to the present (Routledge)
• Duerden, M. D., Rossman, J. R. (2019). Designing Experiences United Kingdom: Columbia University Press

Indicative Topics

Students will typically study the following topics:

• Introduction to Design History and Theory
• Cultural Perspectives in Design
• Design Ethics and Impact
• Sustainable Design Practices

Version History