If you’re creative and you’d like to explore how your ideas could have real impact in the world, our Product Design BA/BSc(Hons) course gives you the chance to develop the skills to become an enterprising professional designer. So much goes into a finished product: the initial sketch, physical model making, prototyping, digital visualisation and animation.

While you’re working on the practical side, we’ll also encourage you to:

• Think about how to research a product, and what goes into product development and manufacturing.
• Use our industry links to help you get started on your career. We focus on commercial product design, and give you the chance to experience real design challenges set by businesses or design organisations. This can offer opportunities to win prestigious design awards and even for your design solutions to be licensed. For example, one recent student designed an innovative clothes hanger that is now used in a major high street store.
• Acquire listening skills to identify gaps in the market, people's frustrations with everyday tasks and existing products and develop ideas to solve them.

We believe design can improve people's lives, aiding an individual or a community's wellbeing. Whether you’re designing solutions physically or digitally, in sketch form or 3D, we’ll focus on end results that are capable of being mass-produced. Both the BA(Hons) and the BSc(Hons) routes of the course have the same programme for the first year. After that you’ll be able to choose which way to go in the second year, and our staff are on hand to help you make your decision.

Placements

The course offers an optional one-year (36 weeks minimum) work placement after the second year, in the UK or abroad. This will give you the opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience, insight into your chosen career and open up your graduate employment prospects. Our Placement Unit and academic staff have excellent industry links and can support you in applying for and finding your placement(s), as well as during your placement year.

Students on the course have previously taken up placement opportunities with companies including: Howdens Joinery – Goole; Limah Design Consultants – Dubai; Animatechnika s.r.o. - Bratislava; Chervon Europe Ltd - York; Roksan Audio - London; Iterign - Newbury; Global One Pak - Cheshire; Showoff Media - Leeds; Paul Stott Design - Skipton; Pegler Yorkshire - Doncaster; Ultima Furniture Systems - Wakefield; Overfinch - Leeds; Walker Brothers - Halifax; Demand Design - Holmfirth; Paxman Coolers - Huddersfield and Ellis Furniture - Huddersfield.

Alternatively, if you are a student from within the UK or the EU, you could consider starting your own small business by applying for the Enterprise Placement Year in conjunction with the University’s Enterprise Team. The University's Enterprise Hub could support you in realising the true commercial value of your intellectual property through a creative enterprise start-up. You’ll have the opportunity to benefit from business advice, mentoring and networking sessions. You can find out more information on the Enterprise Placement Year here.

Your Career

The broad nature of the course, coupled with experience gained in industry, has resulted in a high graduate employment record within a wide range of organisations. Previous graduates of this course are now working in roles with well-known companies including Dyson, Pentland, Hozelock, Black and Decker, Chervon, Maltek, Electrolux and New Balance, as well as Lego**. Outside the practice of design itself, students have gained employment as design engineers, digital visualisers and become design managers, producing many award winning products.

* Percentage of graduates from this course who are in work and/or further study fifteen months after graduating (Unistats 17/18 data, UK domiciled graduates)