Design, Innovation & Brand Management MA | University for the Creative Arts

Course overview

An exciting opportunity to develop your professional skills and managerial capabilities, our MA Design, Innovation & Brand Management course gives you the opportunity to study a combined curriculum that will significantly enhance your skillset, preparing you to become a leading brand, design and innovation manager.

Our course encourages you to consider the value of branding in today's competitive global environment, where organisations continue to compete in overcrowded markets. As consumers become more sophisticated and the plethora of products more similar, the need to differentiate through emotional attachment has become increasingly important, and this is where the course steps in to help future leaders develop one-of-a-kind products and fresh campaign strategies.

The key to successful brand development is an understanding of its relationship with innovation. The popular view has been that branding is connected with logos, advertising and manipulation, whilst innovation is to do with more process-orientated development. UCA has developed this MA course to address all aspects of product design, brand management and the innovation factors that are the foundation for its success.

We will cover each key component and teach students how to run these successfully, whilst addressing their own professional and personal development as leaders along the way. For us, branding is about delivering a rewarding experience to customers, while innovation is about an organisational effort aimed at differentiating a company through original value creation. In other words, each is inextricably linked yet individually defined.

As a student on this course, you'll benefit from working alongside students on the other postgraduate courses at UCA Epsom to better understand the range of products available in today’s market, their similarities, strengths and weaknesses, and above all to develop and deliver customer-centric products and experiences.

Course entry options

Select from the options below to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

MA Design Innovation & Brand Management

What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

Integrated International Pre-Masters (if undertaken)

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Pre-Masters year.

On this course you’ll prepare for postgraduate study with a mix of online and face-to-face learning that will give you the study skills required to complete a Master’s, and you’ll also improve your English for academic study.

Term one

Postgraduate Bootcamp 1: Creativity & Orientation
Bootcamp 1: Creativity is designed to introduce you to the Business School for the Creative Industries’ learning community and professional global network orientation. Through a series of exciting and engaging fast paced workshops, tasks and peer sessions you will access resources, build relationships and develop a vision of the function of business for the creative industries.

Creative Thinking
This unit introduces you to definitions and concepts of creativity. It allows you to explore what creativity is, and reflect methods of creativity with concepts of taste, consumer need as well as user interfaces. As a result of being exposed to various models and methods, you will become more adept in idea generation, lateral thinking and linking ideas to solve marketing related problems.

Principles of Advertising
Understanding the history and evolution of advertising enables us to understand the established infrastructure of this industry and how it might develop in the future. This unit covers the history of the industry, the anatomy of an advertising agency, understanding clients, the concepts of advertising and the role of brands, and the current issues facing the industry.

Products and Prototyping
This unit will focus upon self-directed practice in which you will define and develop individual rationales and methods of working. Research and practice will be directed towards a Literature Review and Project Proposal in which you negotiate and review your practice with your tutor. Prototyping ideas and concepts will allow you to build, visualise, learn, and test design outcomes.

Marketing, Design and Communications
If we can understand branding as strategic, we can understand marketing as the tactical force employed to achieve specific business objectives sent from the brand. This unit is about how to understand branding in this way, so you can improve your own marketing, design and communication skills and investigate solutions to current issues within this industry sector.

Creative Industries: Global Industry & Futures
Delivered in parallel with the Creative Industries: Leadership unit, you will enjoy an integrated series of guest lectures, interactive presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming. The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.

Creative Industries: Leadership
Delivered in parallel with Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures, this is another integrated series following the same format.

Term two

Postgraduate Bootcamp 2: Forecasting & Predictive Analysis
Through examples from empirical research, you will have an overview of main concepts, statistical models, methods, tools and underlying principles used to improve business decision-making. You will learn fundamentals of exploratory data analysis and how to aggregate and visualize datasets.

Human-centred Innovation & Design
Human-centred design (HCD) is a creative way to solve problems. It is a process of designing for people that begins with the people for whom you are developing ideas and ends with individual solutions to meet their needs. You will learn how to design and develop systems by applying HCD and innovation principles and techniques through various relevant activities in planning and management to satisfy user needs and requirements in business, social and global contexts.

Global Creative Industries
This unit will give you comprehensive knowledge of current theories and practices for managing business and process in a global context in the creative sectors. There is a strong focus on contemporary business and marketing concepts enabling you to position yourself and your practice within this constantly changing and demanding landscape.

Masters Project
The Masters Project is the culmination of your studies and is divided into two parts – a research proposal, and your final project. Both parts represent an in-depth investigation and requires you to approach a real problem or opportunity in your specialist area, analyse it, and then develop a tangible strategy and implementation plan, while applying contemporary concepts and frameworks from your studied programme.

Creative Industries: Global Industry & Futures
Delivered in parallel with the Creative Industries: Leadership unit, you will enjoy an integrated series of guest lectures, interactive presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming. The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.

Creative Industries: Leadership
Delivered in parallel with Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures, this is another integrated series following the same format.

All students choose one unit from the following:

Strategy & Decision Making
Throughout this unit you will be expected to critically examine strategic management processes for internationally oriented organisations, and how decision-making affects this. You will be provided with a robust framework of replicable solutions for better decisions and awareness of decision traps, as well as learning how to assess and choose strategic options that can add value. 

Creative Business Start-Up
With the world ever-changing, the traditional rules of business no longer apply. The drive for innovation, creativity and agility are taking precedence. This unit explores the concept of developing creative businesses and the new paths for start-ups. You will analyse the evolution of business structures and explore the new market opportunities and challenges arising from geo-politics, trade relations and the global pandemic. And you will use research to scope out new concepts designed to fulfil rising market trends such as inclusivity, diversity, and cultural differences to create and capture value.

Investment in the Creative Industries
This unit covers the various means of investment in the creative industries. You will explore availability and access of funds through loans, grants, scholarships from government and council schemes to industry organisations and trade bodies, as well as from private equity investors. You will also explore and challenge business/financial models and future landscapes.

Digital Marketing Analytics
This unit explores the evolution of digital marketing and technologies, theories and practice of marketing, and the digital consumer. You will analyse trends and digital communications to innovate, explore and create digital marketing/media strategies and plans to reach various audiences from stakeholders and clients to consumers.

Term three

Postgraduate Bootcamp 3: Competitive Intelligence & Research
Bootcamp 3: Competitive Intelligence Research is designed to familiarise you with the gathering and analysis of competitors, customers, distributors, technologies, and other relevant stakeholders and features in the environment for proactive decision making in the face of threats and opportunities.

Masters Project
The Masters Project is the culmination of your studies and is divided into two parts – a research proposal, and your final project. Both parts represent an in-depth investigation and requires you to approach a real problem or opportunity in your specialist area, analyse it, and then develop a tangible strategy and implementation plan, while applying contemporary concepts and frameworks from your studied programme.

Creative Industries: Global Industry & Futures
Delivered in parallel with the Creative Industries: Leadership unit, you will enjoy an integrated series of guest lectures, interactive presentations, fireside chats and engaging PechaKucha sessions scheduled across 45 weeks of programming. The focus of the series is your individual development providing rich insights applicable to your personal transformational learning journey and provides a holistic view of the global creative industries context and foresight for future trends.

Creative Industries: Leadership
Delivered in parallel with Creative Industries: Global Industry and Futures, this is another integrated series following the same format.

All students choose one unit from the following:

Behavioural Studies and Consumption
In this unit, you will overview main behaviour theories from marketing, sociology and psychology, and their recent trends, to analyse and get acquainted with the decision-making processes of consumers, and their main factors, with a particular application to cultural and creative goods.

Trends & Forecasting
Staying ahead of your customer is vital to commercial success. In this unit, you will learn both perceptive and analytical approaches to trends research, as well as key theories. Then, from the context of your subject discipline, you will interrogate this methodology within your area of specialism and adapt it to gather and validate insights pertinent to your industry.

Global Logistics & Supply Chain Management
Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management is critical for all global organisations, whether business, government or non-profit, where connections to other organisations exist within a network of relationships. This unit examines the processes of supply, production, and distribution that transcend organisational boundaries to make other strategic objectives possible in a globalised marketplace.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Fees & financial support

Fees &
financial support

Fees

Tuition fees - 2024 entry

UK students:

MA course - £10,500

EU students:

MA course - £10,500 (see fee discount information)

International students:

Integrated International Pre-Masters course (30 weeks) - £17,500
Integrated International Pre-Masters course (15 weeks) - £8,750
MA course - £18,000

Further information
The fees listed here are correct for the stated academic year only. For more detailed information about our course fees and any financial support you may be entitled to please see our fees and finance pages.

Financial support & scholarships

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources.

Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

You'll find everything you need to know for your level of study on our scholarships page.

Additional costs

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of your Course Information for details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

The MA courses at UCA Epsom share a baseroom with networked computer facilities and you also have access to our extensive range of campus facilities, including: print studios with extensive screen printing facilities, photography studios, 3D workshops, media store for borrowing film and photography equipment.The bookable photographic studios have darkrooms and digital processing equipment, and the print studios have extensive screen printing facilities.

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Lecture theatre, UCA Epsom

Business School, UCA Epsom

UCA Epsom

Business School studios, UCA Epsom

Career opportunities

Career
opportunities

Industry links

Our course greatly benefits from its location in relation to London, and from our ability to attract top industry practitioners as visiting lecturers.

You'll also have the opportunity to:

Visit exhibitions
Take part in conferences and industry events
And use advanced study facilities such as the British Library and the City Business Library

Careers

Graduates from MA Design, Innovation & Brand Management work in a variety of exciting careers such as:

Brand and design management
Art direction
Marketing
Client account handling
Account planning
Strategic planning.

Further study

You may want to undertake further study or research to specialise even more.

Explore our Gradshow

Each year, we’re privileged to be able to share our graduates’ incredible work with the world. And now’s your chance to take a look.

Visit the online showcase

Francesca Borg

"I loved life in Epsom and the environment at UCA was brilliant. The tutors were all very encouraging and really helped to push each student to reach their potential. I’m jealous of students who are just starting out on the course as I would love to go back and start again myself!"

Entry & portfolio requirements

Entry & portfolio
requirements

UK

MA course

A good honours degree or equivalent qualification in a related discipline

and/or

Relevant work experience, demonstrating your ability to study at postgraduate level.

Consideration will also be given to applicants who can make a strong case for admission in relation to a particular project and can demonstrate their potential to satisfactorily complete the course.

Portfolio requirements

This course does not require a portfolio.

International and EU

MA course

The entry requirements for this course will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

Non-UK equivalent qualifications

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

This course does not require a portfolio.

MA course with Integrated International Pre-Masters course

A recognised bachelor degree or 3 year diploma with a strong portfolio in a relevant subject.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

This course does not require a portfolio.

English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please chcek the level of English language required:

English language requirements

Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?

You may be able to enter the course through the following entry pathways:

Apply now

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Course overview

Course entry options