If you have a passion for making and an ambition to delight, amuse and intrigue, our interdisciplinary course will give you a unique opportunity to explore craft practice and design process. Creating objects using a range of hand and digital techniques we have facilities to build, mould, machine form and digitally create shapes, equipment to take drawn decorative designs onto surfaces, and processes to cut them into hard materials or to 3D print. Using a range of media including; ceramic, textile, wood, resin, glass, metal, and plastic you will be encouraged bring your ideas to fruition.

For more information about this course please visit the Bath School of Art and Design website.

The course will help you to develop your own individual area of practice in which you may ultimately choose to focus on a specific material, such as ceramics, explore in depth processes such as laser cutting, or you may continue with a variety of approaches combining multiple materials and techniques. Through this exploration you will define your own area of specialism and develop an individual career path as designer-maker, artist, in-house designer, gallery owner, curator, or entrepreneur.

Outcomes will encompass one off craft artefacts and bespoke solutions through to batch produced objects, across areas such as lighting, tableware, furniture and product; domestic and commercial, interior and exterior.

Expanding digital cultures and new types of craft production and consumption require a new type of thinking about the role of designer and maker. You will learn to make use of web enabled collaboration, manufacture, and distribution, to balance the needs of the consumer with the wider issues of ecology and sustainability. Studio based modules are supported with studies on critical and historical contexts for craft and design, whilst visiting lecturers provide valuable industry perspectives and an insight into contemporary practice.

Ideas and materials meet to create objects.

The works made during this 3D Design course are executed through a range of materials, processes or scales. The course will help you to develop your personal viewpoint in design and your own individual area of practice.

Why study Three Dimensional Design: Idea Material Object?

The course will help you to develop your own individual area of practice in which you may ultimately choose to focus on a specific material, such as ceramics, explore in depth processes such as laser cutting, or you may continue with a variety of approaches combining multiple materials and techniques. Through this exploration you will define your own area of specialism and develop an individual career path as designer-maker, artist, in-house designer, gallery owner, curator, or entrepreneur.

Ratio of applications to places

No. of applicants (2011): 137

No. of places (2011): 25

National student survey results

Satisfaction with teaching for courses in this subject area (2011): 85%

Course structure

The course will take you on a journey where the goal is to develop your own individual area of practice – you may ultimately choose to focus on a specific material, explore processes or you may continue with a variety of approaches combining multiple materials and techniques. The focus throughout your journey will be to evolve existing processes and develop an original and personal approach that will cement your direction as an independent thinker in design.

Although it is not necessary to know precisely what you’d like to do when you leave, a passion to find out is vital.

Outcomes will encompass one-off craft artefacts and bespoke solutions through to batch produced objects, across areas such as lighting, tableware, furniture and product; domestic and commercial, interior and exterior. The approach of the course is broad and takes into account the innumerable professional outputs where creative thinking will give you a competitive edge in today’s market.

Expanding digital cultures and new types of craft production/consumption require a new type of thinking about the role of designer and maker. You will learn to make use of web enabled collaboration, manufacture, and distribution, to balance the needs of the consumer with the wider issues of ecology and sustainability, poetry and politics. Studio based modules are supported with studies on critical and historical contexts for craft and design, whilst visiting lecturers provide valuable industry perspectives and an insight into contemporary practice.

Year 1 will develop your creative instincts through exploration of the qualities of different materials and making processes, including methods of digital manufacture. Through drawing, photography, experimentation with materials and exploration of computer based processes you will begin to identify your own individual area of practice – creating new ideas and concepts both drawn and made. The first year provides you with a foundation of skills not only in making but also in thinking, brief writing and laying the foundation for asking questions that you answer with the objects you create.

Year 2 will expand your personal making practice and introduce collaborative and live projects with external partners or design businesses and students are supported to undertake work experience and placements. You will also be introduced to marketing and promotional skills, including building narratives in your work and exploring outcomes through photography, publishing, exhibiting and web presence.

Year 3 will further define your own area of practice, audience and market, perhaps as a specialist maker, or utilising outsourced production and assembly techniques to develop your work. You will be producing a body of physical artefacts alongside a combination of visual and written work. We expect your final project work to be at a professional level, and you will be encouraged and supported to display at national and international design show venues.

Throughout the course you will explore the subject’s contextual framework through Historical and Critical Studies modules and gain industry awareness through Professional Context modules. The programme will engage with creative and industry partners to offer ‘Live’ projects and open up opportunities to experience a professional working atmosphere in a safe environment. Your study will be augmented by trips to cultural establishments both nationally and internationally and exchange schemes are planned with institutes around the world.

Course assessment

By exhibition, written papers and live presentations. There are no written exams

If you have a passion for making and an ambition to delight, amuse or intrigue, our interdisciplinary course will give you an opportunity to explore your ideas through craft practice with a focus on the process of design thinking. You will create original objects using a range of techniques in the workshops and through digital outputs.

 The Bath School od Art and Design's facilities are modern and well equipped, and students of this course have access to specialist workshops (including ceramics, textiles, wood, plastic and metal) alongside digital capabilities including CNC routing, laser cutting, 3D printing and much more. Using a range of media you will be encouraged bring your ideas to fruition, and to develop an individual career path as designer-maker, artist, in-house designer, gallery owner, curator, or entrepreneur.

Our students work in a dedicated studio space where the atmosphere is dynamic and open-minded and a culture of sharing information and perspectives is encouraged. The aim is to assist you in finding and enjoying an area of practice that you wish to continue long after term-time is at an end.

Teaching methods

From a predominately studio based environment you will undertake a range modules with access to a wide range of exciting facilities in the School stretching across disciplines and boundaries. You will be able to explore and develop your skills using hand operated craft equipment and high-spec digital software and machinery.

Throughout all levels you will undertake Contextual Studies to examine the critical and theoretical frameworks that underpin and inform your practice. Studio based modules are supported with studies on critical and historical contexts for craft and design, whilst visiting lecturers provide valuable industry perspectives and an insight into contemporary practice.

Application method

All applications are through UCAS.

Course enquiries

For further information please contact Course Leader Shai Akram on s.akram@bathspa.ac.uk

Entry requirements

Standard Art and Design requirements.

A folder of art and design work, plus 3D work as appropriate.

Career opportunities

We expect our graduates to shape their individual career paths as they enter the ever changing future of interdisciplinary design, with some graduates becoming designer-makers, artists, in-house designers, gallery owners, curators, entrepreneurs, critics and equipped to create new and as yet undefined possibilities. We have strong contacts with both the Crafts Council, Design Council and design professionals working in fields as broad as food design, art direction, product development and small batch production.

Our students have been very successful at the graduate design show New Designers and staff/students/alumni have exhibited at the best international design and craft shows including 100% Design, Origin, Tent, Dutch Design Week, Maison-Objet and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York.

% going on to work and/or study for courses in this subject area: 90%

What students say...