The Industrial Design BA course offers a selection of carefully crafted compulsory and optional modules. Years 1 and 2 focus on developing fundamental design skills and knowledge via practical and skills-based modules. During the final year, students apply this learning to a year-long, self-directed, major project that has an industrial design focus, alongside broadening their learning with further elective modules.
Semester 1 & 2
Compulsory modules
Prototyping for Design
The aims of this module are for students to:
A1. Practice key methods for prototyping the aesthetic and functional attributes of a design concept.
A2. Familiarise themselves with the decision-making processes needed to plan and communicate appropriate prototyping strategies and intent.
A3. Extend and enhance students understanding of prototyping introduced in the Part A module, Understanding People (DSA303).
Semester 1
Compulsory modules
Design at SDCA
This module aims to assist students with the transition into university design education - becoming familiar with the process of Design at Loughborough. Both individually and in teams, students will be encouraged to develop and foster imaginative and creative capabilities across the core design practice competencies of sketching, model-making, and CAD.
Design Contexts
The aim of this module is to provide the student with an understanding of design history and its impact on individuals, society, and the environment. Whilst completing the module students will explore their perceptions of design and how this might influence their own design processes. In addition, students will learn how to source reference material, develop their academic writing, and discuss design themes in group seminars.
Understanding People
The aims of this module are for students to To further develop a fundamental understanding of design practice skills by extending and enhancing the design development and concepting skills introduced in module DSA301: Design at SDCA. Students will also become familiar with user research as the basis to design compelling product experiences.
Prototyping for Industrial Design
The aim of the module is to develop an understanding of applied physical prototyping techniques with respect to proof-of-concept testing within the industrial design process. To gain a basic introduction to the Arduino IDE, digital prototyping through CAD and industrial process machine tools for use in physical prototyping.
Semester 2
Compulsory modules
Signs and Meanings
The aim of this module is to provide students with a basic understanding of semiotics, semantics, and branding in relation to human-centred design. Whilst completing the module students will develop appreciation of form, colour, and other designed features as signifiers of desired branded product qualities alongside the ability to conduct, analyse, and present visual research information.
Interactions and Experiences
The aim of this module is for students to develop an understanding of the distinct nature of designing for physical and digital interactions and its relationship to shaping experiences. Students will gain an appreciation of typical principles and practices used within these areas, extending, and enhancing the design development and conceptualisation skills introduced in the Part A modules: Design at SDCA, and Understanding People.
Experiential Futures
The aims of this module are for the student to bring together, extend and enhance the design and development skills introduced in the preceding Part A modules. Through exploring and anticipating future contexts, scenarios, experiences and narratives, students will anticipate future user needs and design and represent innovative future solutions.
Semester 1 & 2
Compulsory modules
Design Communication
This module aims to support students in extending and enhancing key communication and presentation techniques for the creation of an outward facing professional design identity.
Semester 1
Compulsory modules
Digital Modelling Tools 1
This module aims to develop students' expertise in software and digital tools commonly used in the design of physical products. Students will use digital surfacing tools and produce outputs from software that enables the construction, evaluation, visualisation, and communication of design proposals, advancing and augmenting the software skills introduced in the Part A modules: Design at SDCA, Understanding People, Prototyping for Design.
Design for Rapid Manufacture
This module provides students with knowledge around design for Injection Moulding, but more specifically, design for rapid tooling using Additive Manufacturing technologies. The module intends to shift the perception that injection moulding is just for mass production; with the use of rapid tooling, Injection Moulding is increasingly becoming viable for batch production. Furthermore, lead times are reduced not just for mould tool development but also for the delivery of high value end-use parts with reduced carbon footprint. Students will gain an appreciation of the typical usage of Injection Moulding, the design rules surrounding Injection Moulding, but also the opportunities presented with Additive Manufacturing to make mould tool components with faster lead times, reduced costs, and with sustainability in mind.
New Product Development
The aim of this design practice-focused module is to develop skills and knowledge in the distinctive (unique) contribution that industrial design makes to new product development. This is achieved through project-based learning for a mass manufactured product requiring the following activities:
- Identification of market opportunity/user need to create a sub-brief
- Creation of a compelling user experience that includes direct interaction with the designed product
- Manipulation of functional and technical requirements to generate an optimised configuration of components with an appropriate aesthetic
- User evaluation
- Manual and digital modelling techniques (2D/3D) to generate, manipulate and present design ideas
- Time management and effective working practice for independent learning
- Professionalism to support placement/graduate employment
Semester 2
Compulsory modules
Shaping Technologies in Society
This module aims to expose students to the notion that technologies are entities that are shapeable by design and designers, and in doing so can lead more meaningful products, experiences, and environments. Students will understand the position of technology in society now and in the future, and propose new future facing products, experiences, and environments. Students will extend and enhance the design development and concepting skills introduced in the Part A modules: Interactions & Experiences, and the Part B modules: Shaping Materials, Understanding People 2.
Digital Modelling Tools 2
This module aims to further advance student expertise in software and digital tools commonly used in the development and visual communication of products. Students will use software and digital tools to produce outputs that enable the communication and evaluation of design proposals, advancing and augmenting the software skills introduced in the Part A modules: Design at SDCA, Understanding People, Prototyping for Design, and the Part B module: Digital Modelling Tools 1.
Studio Product Design
The aim of this module is for students to practice the development of a product proposal in response to a top-level brief suitable for presentation within the initial phases of a consultancy project.
Optional modules
Arts Management
The aims of this module are to:
- Give students an awareness and understanding of arts management as a discipline, in the context of arts organisations and the creative industries.
- Provide students with a context in which to explore ideas and practices related to professional environments they may wish to progress to post-graduation.
- Present students with the opportunity to evaluate and apply information, resources and ideas to a scenario relevant to their career futures.
Responsible Practice: Making your Manifesto
The aim of this module is to equip students with both the skills and mindset to uphold and reflect on the values of Responsible Design, namely design that is ethical, pluriversal, planet-centric, decolonial, transdisciplinary, and optimistic, in both the processes and outcome of the creative agenda.
Creative Dissent: Protest, Activism and Art
This module highlights the social production of art. It explores the extent to which art and cultural production contributes to protest movements and activates social and political transformation. Addressing historical and contemporary connections between art and activist practices, it will provide students with an understanding of the complex relationship between art, politics and wider social movements.
In addition to facilitating the development and contextualisation of their own socially-engaged studio or cultural practice, it will provide students with an opportunity to develop specialist interests for future study in Part C and to engage in the creation of a community of learners and researchers.
Creative Placemaking
The aims of this module are to:
- Explore how creative interventions can transform how spaces function.
- Develop theoretical and practical understanding of how creative practitioners can actively work to inform placemaking.
Drawing Characters: Representation and Identity
The aims of this module are to:
- Raise student's awareness of identity and representation issues in character designs.
- Equip students with transferrable character design skills that could be applied to a wide range of creative arts subject disciplines.
Story Design for Creative Industries
The aims of this module are to: learn basic elements of creating narratives for the story industry, to include film, TV, stage, animated film, and video games, and to provide a forum in which these skills can be practised. The module will enable students to analyse and explore their own creative practice. They will design and develop a short outline for their chosen medium, under the supervision of tutors.
Fashion to Function: Designing Clothing and Wearable Products
The aims of this module are to:
- Understand the core principles of human-centred design and fashion design, and how they apply to clothing and wearable products.
- Develop effective communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills in multi-disciplinary teams for the successful execution of fashion design products for a specific consumer.
- Compile a portfolio showcasing individual and team contributions to clothing/wearable product designs, highlighting the integration of human-centred design principles and fashion design processes.
The Ethics and Aesthetics of Generative AI in Design
The aim of this module is to imbue students with the capability to utilise generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and an understanding of the ethical implications of GenAI tools in design practice. After completion of the module students will have gained: an appreciation for what GenAI tools are available and which are currently popular in their discipline of choice; foresight into how these tools are developing and what their future capabilities will be; and what the ethical implications are for the use of GenAI in their field of study.
Phantom Threads: Fashion, Costume and Culture in Film
The aims of this module are to:
- Introduce a range of theories and concepts related to costume and clothing, pertaining to fashion in film.
- Apply these concepts to a variety of relevant cinematic contexts including historical period, the wearing of uniform, the construction of fantasy, the function of specialist dress, fashion as symbols of community, ritual and identity.
Semester 1 & 2
Compulsory modules
Live Projects
The module is designed to provide students with a design sprint experience that helps them develop the necessary skills to respond quickly to client briefs in a consultancy environment.
The module provides a selection of briefs from various industries, allowing students to engage in a fast-paced design process. Each student must choose one brief and create a design proposal, which is then submitted to the respective companies for feedback. This process is integrated with the University's assessment procedures.
A key aim of the module is to facilitate student interaction with industry and develop their professional skills.
IDMP Industrial Design Major Project
The aims of this module are for the student to:
- Integrate and apply knowledge and understanding, cognitive and practical skills from modules studied throughout the programme.
- Demonstrate core competencies in:
- Conducting and analysing primary and secondary research
- Developing a brief
- Concept exploration and development
- Concept Development
- Prototyping solutions for evaluation with users and other stakeholders
- Consider real world production constraints (materials, processes and costs) in the refinement of their concept.
- Evaluate solutions with stakeholders; propose and justify improvements based on evaluation feedback.
- Create presentation material suitable for communicating the project at an end of year show.
Semester 1
Optional modules (choose one)
Design for Impact: Team Design Project
The aims of this module are for the student:
- To exploit and enhance design capabilities acquired in Parts A, B and I, through appropriate design team activity.
- To utilise appropriate design research to enhance innovative design activity.
- To have the opportunity to enter an international student design competition.
- To generate high quality content for a personal design portfolio.
Inclusive Design
The aim of this module is to:
- Develop and apply understanding of human variability, in particular ageing and disability.
- Understand and apply standards, legislation and design(er) responsibility to the design of particular products, services or systems.
- Explore the specialist requirements of inclusive design from the perspective of diverse user groups.
- Explore and apply approaches to inclusion, as well as where bespoke, customised, exclusive design is appropriate.
Semester 2
Optional modules (choose one)
Sustainable Design
This module aims to prepare design students with the knowledge and skills required to develop innovative sustainable design solutions.
Research for Design
The aims of this module are to develop research, project management and report writing capability by investigation which aims to further the development of a design topic.
Computer Aided Modelling and Manufacture
The aims of this module are for the student to gain a greater understanding of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Manufacture (CAM), and what computer supported technologies bring to the design process. The module will allow the student to build on core CAD/CAM skills developed in Parts A and B of the programme through the theoretical and practical application of advanced CAD/CAM techniques, but with particular focus on 3D data acquisition and surface modelling for high quality production models.
Automated Design & Manufacturing
The module seeks to enhance students' understanding of modern advancements in automated design and manufacturing and how to leverage these in creating innovative design outcomes.
The information above is intended as an example only, featuring module details for the current year of study. Modules are reviewed on an annual basis and may be subject to future changes – revised details will be published through Programme Specifications ahead of each academic year. Please also see Terms and Conditions of Study for more information.