Design Degrees Online

Career Prospects

Students leave with a broad and valuable understanding of performance practice in its many forms. The skills acquired enable graduates to become versatile practitioners in many exciting and diverse professions. Graduates are now working in theatre, television, film, opera, and ballet; some have gone on to direct, write, or produce and others to set up their own creative companies and partnerships.

Performance Design and Practice is an expanding area incorporating aspects of theatre industry and other professional art practices. The course develops practicing artists with a range of understanding from traditional theatre to live and performance art, installation, film, television, spatial/exhibition/event design to video and live music events.

It aims to introduce, analyse and challenge the idea of theatre and performance - transcending language barriers and encouraging students to explore traditional forms and assumptions in an atmosphere of innovation and risk.

The course approaches the enormous diversity of the subject through offering the experience of creative roles, broadly expressed as design, composition/authorship, and performing. These roles are inherently collaborative - whether designing, directing, writing, performing or taking responsibility for any individual task in the creation of performance.

Ultimately the course seeks to enable students to work as self-directed creative individuals in relation to a variety of collaborative situations within the theatre/performance industries.

Honours Degree; evidence of experiential learning equivalent to a degree; or 3 years relevant professional experience. For the part time mode, you would need to be working in a design-related profession. Research interests, professional experience and personal goals are more important than the quality of your portfolio.

Suitable candidates
We believe that you can shape the world rather than accepting that it has to determine your future. The course offers an environment where people from, for example, business, marketing, fashion, product design, architecture to fine art can work together and individually to challenge to evolve a better world.
Our students come from all over the world and we celebrate and include their diverse cultural knowledge in our quest to create alternative paradigms. Students draw on each others professional and diverse cultural experience to provide critical and constructive insights that open up new ways of thinking and doing.

English language requirements
All classes are conducted in English, so you will be required to have a fluent understanding of the language. If English is not your first language you will be asked to provide evidence of your English language ability. We strongly advise international applicants to take an IELTS test as soon as they consider studying in the UK. Minimum scores for entry on to a postgraduate course are as follows:

IELTS (International English Language Testing System): 6.5

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language): hand written test: 568-587, computer based test: 226-240

We provide free tuition in English for international students and regular workshops in the language of art and design. We also offer a number of short courses that enable students from overseas to improve their portfolios and English skills before applying to their chosen course.

Career Prospects

The strengths of the course are being continually demonstrated and promoted by the success of its graduates. Career change, promotion, business start-up success and new product innovation are examples of some of the achievements made by our graduates.

MA Design Studies is concerned with the collaboration of business and creative practice. It aims to push the boundaries of the working relationship between business and creativity; altering perceptions of how the two work together. It provides a particular approach to the study and application of creative innovation, and gives you the confidence to question convention, anticipate the future and experiment with new forms and content. You are especially encouraged to make imaginative leaps into the future and to speculate on its shape through the interrelationship of design theory, models of creativity, management, marketing and business. To help you to do this, the course draws together creative and business talent from a deliberately eclectic range of backgrounds, for example entrepreneurs, musicians and designers.

The interaction between different disciplines is a key factor in promoting an ethos of innovation. Students draw on each other’s professional and diverse cultural experience to provide critical and constructive insights that open up new ways of thinking and doing.
The interplay between responsible economic and responsible social contribution is a key agenda at the heart of this course. We celebrate and encourage the application of the imagination but are not in the business of producing empty style. Ultimately this course offers a place where you have the opportunity to question yourself and your assumptions and evolve the beginning of whole new direction or develop a deeper understanding of your passion and potential. We aim to have fun and to encourage collaboration but the burden of responsibility rests upon the shoulders of the individual. Serious research, soul-searching questions and the application of your imagination are the elements of our version of productive change. Our former students have changed their lives through entrepreneurial endeavour, career redefinition and social concern enterprise.

Employers have included Adidas, Banff New Media, Castelbajac, Donna Karan, Etam, Hussein Chayalan, Line Consultants, Louis Vuitton, Margiela, Media Lab Europe, Nicole Farhi, Speedo, Ted Baker and Trend Union. Many of our designers have started their own businesses and have won special awards and grants from the Crafts Council, Nesta Pioneer and Texprint. Some of our graduates prefer to develop an academic career and teach in various institutions around the world.

Students have also gained press coverage in magazines such as Elle Decoration, Crafts, Selvedge, Surface, International Textiles, Viewpoint, View Colour, Frame, Sleazenation and Creative Review. Their work is also included in international exhibitions around the world. Students are also involved in major design exhibitions at key institutions such as the V&A and the Craft Council.

Industry links
The course has established various links with industry allowing students to work on international design projects and EU ICT initiatives. The course itself has contributed much to debate around design, both through the media and by organising and delivering papers at international conferences.

Students are expected to establish their own network of contacts and develop collaborations within industry as part of the development of their Masters project. Students have benefited from collaboration with companies such as Lancel, Louis Vuitton, Nissan Europe, Stella McCartney and Tristan Webber.

In the first year, a selection of design projects are organised jointly with industry or with another research institution. For example, in 2004/05 the course will be working with Medialab Europe on a smart textiles project.

The majority of MA Industrial Design graduates enter employment in design consultancies and manufacturing industries worldwide. A significant number progress to PhD level or commercial research. Many graduates are now distinguished and respected designers and design managers in international companies.

The course provides a professionally oriented context in which intellectual development is directly applied to design practice. It enables students to evolve as designers who are able take on a strategic role; to develop their ability to identify and respond to social, technological and economic trends; to initiate new approaches to design; and to participate at a high level in the work of multidisciplinary teams.

Industry links
The course has recently enjoyed collaborative projects with BT, Camper, GlaxoSmithKline, the Home Office, J Paul Getty Museum, London Underground, the Metropolitan Police service, Multisecure and Virgin Megastores.

Flexible, imaginative, innovative and able to collaborate with other disciplines, industrial designers must respond to rapid commercial and technological change. Increasingly designers are called upon to take a proactive role within industry and become involved in strategic decision making. MA Industrial Design encourages the anticipation and initiation of change in all areas of industrial design: consumer-durable products; capital goods; transport; packaging; sanitary ware; furniture for private, corporate and public environments; architectural space; interface design; design management; and strategies for corporate and governmental development.

The relationships between industrial designer, manufacturer, retailer, purchaser and end-user are continually renegotiated, demanding greater flexibility and a wider knowledge of industry and commerce. Managerial skills are often as important as the engineering and creative skills required to develop design concepts. There is a strong emphasis on self-directed and peer-group learning within the course. This is reinforced by the diverse mix of cultures and backgrounds represented by our students.

Central Saint Martins has long been at the forefront of design education and continues to play a leading role in shaping industrial design as a discipline.

Honours degree; evidence of experiential learning equivalent to a degree; or 3 years relevant professional experience.

Suitable candidates
The course is aimed at those looking to develop their career potential; those with experience of decision making in ceramics, furniture or jewellery design; and practitioners seeking to maximise their existing knowledge-base. Some applicants have a BA in an appropriate specialist subject. Other applicants come from wider arts-based specialisms.

English language requirements
All classes are conducted in English, so you will be required to have a fluent understanding of the language. If English is not your first language you will be asked to provide evidence of your English language ability. We strongly advise international applicants to take an IELTS test as soon as they consider studying in the UK. Minimum scores for entry on to a postgraduate course are as follows:

IELTS (International English Language Testing System): 6.5

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language): hand written test: 548-567, computer based test: 211-225

We provide free tuition in English for international students and regular workshops in the language of artand design. We also offer a number of short courses that enable students from overseas to improve their portfolios and English skills before applying to their chosen course.

Career Prospects

The course aims to launch graduates on influential careers in design, practice and industry in the UK and internationally.

Industry links
Alongside teaching experience, all staff have professional careers and strong links with commercial, artistic, craft and industrial bodies nationally and internationally. Over the duration of the MA, meetings with practitioners, industry professionals, and participants in the wider design community will enable you to learn to communicate effectively across a range of different environments.