Content and structure

«It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.»  – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

Designers are often taught to frame every issue, no matter how complex, as a problem to be solved. In the Master’s Major in Industrial Design, we believe that in order to design for complex realities, design requires inclusive and optimistic approaches geared towards transdisciplinary exchange and collaboration. We aim to expand the industrial design practice beyond its traditional disciplinary limits. The programme builds upon a hybrid understanding of design where its tangible and expressive potential aligns with imaginative, alternative and critical perspectives. Through experimental learning and collective sense-making, the fast-paced two-year course offers a platform for you to expand your creative perspectives, deepen your design research practice, and sharpen your instincts for positive influencing a rapidly changing design landscape.

Course content.

The Master’s Major in Industrial Design empowers designers to move beyond convenience-driven and user-centred design, towards envisioning and generating alternative ecological and social narratives capable of adapting to the unrelenting acceleration of technologies. We believe that the most transformative work emerges in the spaces between innovation and speculation, present and potential futures, designs that enable and those that envision. Our curriculum provides a space for balancing both realms, using design to bridge divergent intents together and propose new possibilities for products, interactions, and aesthetics. Students engage with a range of mediums and methods for researching, prototyping, and storytelling. The course cultivates practice-based approaches, enabling students to strengthen their design and research capabilities through interdisciplinary projects that are speculative, experimental, and innovation-led.

Course structure.

The Master's program is a full-time, two-year course structured across four semesters.

In the first year, you will enhance your ability to engage in research and personal reflection, expand your design and communication repertoire and build research knowledge in relation to your field of interest. Through a series of set collaborative and individual projects, you will explore different design approaches, contexts and intents. All of the projects, methods, and insights from the first year serve as a foundation for developing your own MA project and producing a body of work that reflects the professional context in which you wish to practise. The first year culminates in a colloquium where you will present your thesis concept and timeline to reviewers and peers.

At the beginning of the second year, you are expected to initiate your own thesis project and to decide where it sits in the constellation between design for innovation and design for speculation. You become progressively independent through the third and fourth semester. The final semester is dedicated to the realisation of your design project, the completion of a written thesis, and presentation of your work in an exhibition. Course offerings are continuously refined each year to reflect the students’ practices, the evolving design profession, and the world around us.

Minor-specific

The cross-disciplinary Minor programme covers a quarter of the course time. This programme sharpens writing skills and teaches research methods, design theory and methodology, digital research techniques, presentation skills and entrepreneurship. Students can also choose between a range of courses focused on future careers: applied entrepreneurial (design as artefact), critical and speculative (design as statement) or communicative and reflective (design as reflection).

Admissions requirements.

The Master’s Major in Industrial Design is intended for creative practitioners aiming to expand industrial design beyond its disciplinary boundaries and critically engage with current technological, ecological, and social challenges through a curiosity-based and practice-led approach.

We are looking for critical makers with an open mindset who hold a Bachelor’s degree in design or a design-related discipline, e.g. engineering, architecture, art, fashion, and media communication.

Our studio culture fosters exchange and encourages students to develop an individual design approach and forward-looking project themes. Students are expected to engage in a proactive dialogue with tutors, lecturers and researchers to draw upon their expertise.

Benefits of studying at ZHdK.

During your studies in the Industrial Design programme, you will benefit from the university's extensive professional and academic network, a wide range of working spaces, and a dynamic environment. Collaborative modules with students from Design Trends & Identity, Interaction Design, Film, and other disciplines generate new tools for thinking, making, and presenting your work.

Individual modules led by both internal and external practitioners foster critical skills for rapid prototyping, transdisciplinary collaborations, and (virtual) worldbuilding. A diverse set of local and international partners are present to support your thesis, research interests, and professional ventures. 

As part of the programme, you will also have the opportunity to take part in an international group study trip to encourage exchange and broaden cultural perspectives and several domestic excursions alongside fellow MA Design students. You will have access to an atelier space shared with four other MA in Design specialisations: Design Trends & Identity, Game Design, Interaction Design, Knowledge Visualisation, and Visual Communication.

Our extensive workshop infrastructures and Industrial Design Lab provide hands-on opportunities to experiment with new technologies and tools. Experienced workshop staff are present to support you throughout the making process. Prior to the start of the first year, students enrolled in the Industrial Design programme are automatically registered for compulsory introductory courses for the wood, metal, and plastics workshops so you can begin your studies with full access to these spaces. Further information about the Z-Tech Introductory courses for other workshops can be found on the Studios and Workshops page.