Industrial Design
The Department of Industrial Design supports a diverse range of taught programmes in the fields of:
All courses put great emphasis on our close working relationships with industry and the design profession via collaborative projects, (this year with Ford’s UK design studio, Ferrari in Italy and Hardys & Hansons Brewery), our Guest Visiting Lecturer programme and active staff research and consultancy.
Graduate success
Competitions
One of our recent Coventry University graduates won the 'Best Conceptual Interior' category at the Interior Motives Student Design Awards in Frankfurt in 2009. He also won the overall award of 'Student Designer of the Year'.
These awards showcase the finest design innovations by students from a broad range of disciplines, and present the very best of their work to the global automotive design community. Coventry University students were recognised in all 7 categories beating competition from several hundred other entries from Universities across the globe.
Employment
Industrial Design has a 30 year history of running successful, high profile courses and our graduate employment rate is enviable.
We’ll be the first to admit that we’re best known for our successes in the automotive and transport areas – there are for example 12 of our graduates in the Land Rover design studio, from Design Director downwards, including the designer responsible for the exterior of the new Discovery 3.
The Chief Designer at Lotus and Design Director at Volvo are also Coventry graduates. However, many product design consultancies seek our Industrial Design graduates specifically because their close working relationship with automotive design colleagues and their subsequence distinctive visual flair.
Our graduates have found diverse success designing websites, sports equipment (Adidas, Puma – Germany, Reebok and Nike - USA, Speedo and Animal in the UK, and FILA in Italy) and computer games for Sony Playstation.
Our courses
When you enrol on a course in the Department of Industrial Design you will find yourself on a generic Transport and Product Design course.
After successful completion of carefully selected modules, you’ll be able to specialise in areas which are much closer to your career aspiration – whether, for example, that’s transport, product, automotive or boat design.
Our undergraduate courses are 4 years long (though 3 year versions may exceptionally be possible). The content difference is the ‘Professional Enhancement’ year on the four year routes, which includes a group collaborative project and the chance to apply for a Professional Training Placement in the UK or abroad.
Centre of Excellence for Product and Automotive Design
Coventry University unveiled the future of transport and product design at the official launch of the Centre of Excellence for Product and Automotive Design (CEPAD).
Karen Bull, the Director of CEPAD commented:
"Our belief is that encouraging practical studio-based learning and maintaining strong links with leading industrial designers - in particular those from the transport industry - coupled with research into the global design community of practice, will enable students to develop the skills, knowledge and cultural awareness that will help them transform into confident, creative and critically minded designers who can identify with their global design community."