Product Design is concerned with both the current and future position of the product and the product designer within the global economy. It allows for the development of ‘live’ and speculative projects concerned with design ethics, trend prediction, brand development and promotion. Projects in this area seek to understand and develop product design as part of a wider context of systems, organisations and experiences.
Through the contemporary understanding of the ‘experience economy’, large sections of traditional thinking are being reviewed. A new emphasis on service and sustainability leads to a need to redefine and reposition product design within a broader, interdisciplinary context. Product design now needs to address contemporary imperatives for re-use, re-branding and re-situating a whole range of established services and artefacts. Central to this are methods for analysing and predicting trends and future forecasting.
You will consider product design through issues of materiality, experience and representation, reviewing organisational and promotional contexts, placing yourself in relation to contemporary research, practice and publication.
