People

Next course start: 1st of September
Registration deadline: 1st of March
Duration: 2 years / 4 semesters / 120 ECTS
Admission requirements: No
Duration of studies: 2 years / 4 semesters / 120 ECTS
Location: Design School Kolding
Instruction language: English

Design for People
Skills
Courses
Practice
Studios
Future
Career
Graduation 2023
Admission

Design for People

Why should I choose Design for People?

Design for People is aimed at students who are professionally bold; who possess a social and societal awareness; who wish to adopt an exploratory, critical and open-minded approach and who want to focus their design practices on social agendas in an interdisciplinary forum.

Students from all four of the school's own bachelor's programmes will be accepted as well as students from other disciplines who meet the admission criteria by showing a design understanding equivalent to the level of a bachelor’s degree in design.

As a student at Design for People, you must be able to master a design process and activate design methods to develop design projects within the design disciplines of Industrial Design, Communication Design, Fashion Design, Textile Design or Accessory Design under the theme of MA People programme.

Projects at Design for People, take point of departure in peoples' needs and behavior. A design student at Design for People must have the inclination, will and courage to conduct different types of real life user studies as means for qualifying their design project.

Skills

What will I learn?

Design for People teaches design; theory, process and methods to make the students develop design projects which can solve human, social and societal challenges.

You learn to

use stakeholder involvement as a foundation for better design solutions
master complexity when designing within the human, social and societal challenges
design relations for improved living conditions

We work within different domains where design can have a social impact through thematic approaches such as: empathic design, critical design, speculative design, participatory design, co-design and transformative design. You will explore new and concrete ways to address visions of a socially sustainable future by focusing on design, users, stakeholders, creativity, empathy, ethics, complex problem solving, and critical thinking.

In Design for People we see a huge potential for designers to take part in the technological development. A designer from People will be skilled to enter the complex space between people and technology, with the aim to make new technology desirable for future users.

As a student you will be equipped with knowledge, and skills to challenge the status quo and point towards a more socially sustainable future.

Page overview of ma program Design for People

Courses

Situating Social Design

Understanding the contextual changes in design and the role of the designer. Introducing different methods of user observation and involvement.

Empathic Equality

Understanding the core thoughts of emphatic design and participatory design methods.

Critical Framing

Challenging current social issues, to be addressed by design practice. Understanding the theory of a critical design approach for moving towards how things ought to be

Exploring Design Profession

An introduction to the design practices in the job market while exploring different ways of working within the design profession with the perspective of sustainability, co-creation or play aiming to develop contemporary design practices.

Empowering Change

In collaboration with chosen companies, the course identifies relevant problems and focuses on process facilitation from idea to creation of ideas in real scenarios.

Design Methodology

An introduction to design methodology in a historic as well as contemporary context making you able to understand and put theories, discussions and main directions in the field into perspective as well as reflect on your own practice.

Design Practice and Prototyping

The course will expand your professional repertoire within prototyping and encourage you to form a strategy for the future acquisition of skills.

Exploring Design Perspectives

An exploration of your motivation and goals and competences in relation to the content of the Master's education.

Practice

How will I learn?

You will be taught by Danish and international, highly qualified teachers from academia as well as practice.

The curriculum of Design for People includes design of products, services, methods, processes, systems and experiences that make new suggestions to improve or challenge existing solutions or conditions.

At Design for People, we encourage critical thinking about social agendas and integrate the core concept of design by focusing on how things ought to be. We collaborate with municipalities, NGOs, companies and institutions.

The instruction comprises a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops and individual and group-based project work.

Studios

Learning through making is a core part of Designschool Koldings approach to education - discover the Studios

picture pointing to the workshops oversigt landing page from design for people, design for planet, design for play

Future

Why is Design for People important?

Design for People is aimed at a more socially sustainable future. We focus on developing more equitable and dignified societies for people to live in.

Globally, we find ourselves in a time when new ways of doing things are needed as never before. There is an urgent need for inventing new products and services that can solve specific challenges and for systems, processes or methods that can change impractical behaviour and deadlocked situations.

The design profession needs to be a partner in this development, and the world needs new ways of design thinking and design doing to come up with new suggested solutions to complex issues (wicked problems). Designers, must therefore, participate actively in the challenges we are facing both right now and in the future.