Product Design BSc(Hons)

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Portfolio advice

We appreciate that a school curriculum may affect what you are able to present and that some applicants may not have a formal portfolio. However, you should look at presenting a range of work that demonstrates an understanding of the skills that you need to undertake design project work. These skills include:

• an eye for insight
• determination
• analytical as well as creative working
• practical as well as theoretical working.

You can draw from your extracurricular activities as well as your schoolwork.

It can be tempting to include a lot in your portfolio, but we advise you to limit it to a few pages of your best work. This is a good way to more concisely demonstrate your abilities.

Find out more about how to create and submit your portfolio.

Why choose Brighton?

• Work alongside others in a friendly, creative and collaborative studio environment. 
• Develop your practical experience alongside theoretical knowledge, from placement opportunities to taking part in competitions and projects supported by industry such as the Fixperts project in the Design Practice: Inclusive Design module.
• Bring your ideas to life in our workshops and prototyping labs equipped with the latest industry tools and technologies including 3D printers, CNC machines, VR and robotics.
• Learn from our expert staff with a range of specialisms and excellent industry contacts, as well as visiting professionals, and gain a real grounding for a career that fuses creativity, science, technology and innovation.
• Accredited by the Institution of Engineering Designers.

Year 1

In your first year you take four core modules that build on each other as they become more specialised in the four areas. The first part of the year introduces you to the fundamental elements of product design, developing your skills in making, thinking and evaluation. Later in the year you’ll be introduced to more complex design issues and skills including digital prototyping and manufacture, and inclusive design, and human factors, such as engaging with a global community of design innovators through Fixperts.

Modules

• Design Practice: Creativity, Prototyping and Communication

  This module introduces you to product design knowledge, skills and abilities. You will explore 2D, 3D and digital skills as well as the workshop facilities and making practices and skills that will help develop your understanding of prototyping, and design for manufacture. You'll also find out about design methods, approaches and ways of thinking that will enable you to better understand ways in which designers research, develop and communicate ideas.

• Design Cultures: Histories and Theories

  This module is the first Design Cultures module which introduces the designers, global design styles and movements that have helped to shape the world we live in and the way we design today. You'll develop analytical skills such as critical thinking that will allow you to understand design more fully and become a better designer. You'll explore the importance of history and geography, including the legacies of power that have shaped it as a practice, as material culture and a body of knowledge. You'll learn from a diverse range of sources enabling you to challenge the dominant narratives and approaches that you encounter.

• Design Practice: Inclusive Design

  Work with other students to create ingenious solutions to an everyday problem for a real person. Your group will research, develop, test and propose viable human-centred design solutions using research methods, creative techniques, prototyping and testing methods, communication and storytelling techniques. Alongside the group work you will enhance your 2D, 3D and digital skills, building on your ability to design and present using CAD and supporting your ability to record and communicate using film-making and editing. You'll also learn methods and approaches that support  effective group working.

• Design Technologies: Digital Manufacturing

  This module introduces you to digital fabrication principles, methods and tools which are explored and applied in a practical way through a series of mini design exercises followed by a 'stretch' exercise enabling you to apply what you have learned in an area that interests you. Students can make a variety of prototypes using CAD/CAM, 3D printing and scanning, electronics design and production, and wired and wireless communications. Your learning will be practical and hands-on, and you'll explore how to use the tools, equipment and machines developing your understanding the theory of how they work along with a critical evaluation of their applications.

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through Student View.

Year 2

In your second year you develop products for a real market, including learning how to use different technologies to create prototypes as you build your understanding of the commercial side of product development. You also consider challenging global issues and how everyday practices connect with long-term consequences and become familiar with frameworks to help guide design decisions and ambitions. During this year you also explore contemporary issues in design and begin to identify paths you want to follow in terms of practice and further study.

Modules

• Design Practice: Design to Market
• Design Cultures: Contemporary Issues in Design
• Design Practice: Responsible Design
• Design Technologies: Interactions and Experiences

Placement 

A placement year gives you the opportunity to gain professional experience either through external work placements with industry partners or working on live projects. An alternative to professional placement is offered through the study abroad initiative which provides you with the opportunity to study with a partner university overseas. 

These experiences help to strengthen your portfolio and give you a competitive edge in the job market.

Graduating award

If you undertake and pass your placement year, your experience will be reflected in the degree that you graduate with – Product Design with Professional Experience BEng(Hons).

George Gilliat did his placement with Lego in Denmark - read all about his experience.

Final year

Projects at the beginning of your final year help you to define your design specialism by allowing you to focus on your professional ambitions. Alongside this you undertake your dissertation, the knowledge you uncover as part of your research can also be used to support your design practice. 

In the second part of the year you undertake a single self-directed major project that integrates your learning across both the Design Practice and Design Technologies modules. Your final project embodies the values, principles, skills and experience you have developed during your studies into well-resolved clearly communicated design outcomes.

Modules

• Design Practice: Professional Practices
• Design Cultures: Dissertation
• Design Practice: Self-directed Project
• Design Technologies: Self-directed Project

Kyle Withey won first prize at the 2023 University of Brighton Ideas Competition for his idea for a new type of 3D printer.

Facilities 

You have access to our specialist facilities equipped with the latest industry tools and technologies as well as our creative, collaborative studio space.

Technicians are on hand to offer expert guidance on the use of all facilities. They offer support and training with machinery and software as well as providing professional knowledge and advice for making and manufacturing your prototypes.

Workshops and equipment include:

• 3D print workspace with a range of different printers and finishing areas
• CNC workshop with a five-axis CNC machine
• VR lab
• Robotics lab
• Wood workshop
• Metal and welding workshop
• Finishing room equipped with spray booths
• Wind tunnel
• Computer facilities with industry standard software including Photoshop, Illustrator and SolidWorks

360 facilities tour
Take a look at our studio and workshop facilities 

Meet the team

Course fees

If you choose to take the professional placement (sandwich) year offered on this course you will pay a reduced fee during this year. Our fee for the professional placement year is £1,410 for UK students and £2,180 for international students. This fee may be subject to small increases, in line with inflation.

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2024–25.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate and postgraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• About the university’s fees by checking our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

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