Design, Innovation & Brand Management MA

Design Innovation & Brand Management MA

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.

Length of study	1 year full-time
Campus	Epsom
Entry requirements	Honours degree and/or relevant work experience
Course entry options	Sept 2021, Sept 2022

MA Design Innovation & Brand Management

Course details

Term one

You'll be introduced to the University and the technical workshops and facilities available to you. The first term includes a range of lectures and seminars and you’ll start to explore your creative practice.

Research and Communication
This unit enables you to undertake a focused and rigorous investigation into the purpose and process of research at postgraduate level within the field of Design, Innovation & Brand Management. It is designed to support and advance the project work produced during the rest of your MA study through a developed investigation of research methods. You will define, articulate and critically reflect upon the research concerns of your own practice during this unit, thereby underpinning and enhancing your knowledge and understanding of the chosen field of study, as well as developing your ability to communicate this in a variety of way through a process of understanding and developing your practice, drilling down from contextual research to more focused ideas, understanding the importance of the blend of academic and pragmatic research, exposure to design led ideas, debate, conversation, and the innovative introduction of research and study methods into the course.

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 interface. Throughout this unit you will be required to implement creative processes using various techniques connected with the development of creative skills.

Term two

During term two you begin developing your MA project, evaluating and testing out the aims of your proposal over a sustained period of self-directed study.

Professional Practice
Individually or in small teams you will tackle some of the industrial problems of our age. You will write or choose a brief, and iterate over 5 weeks applying your research and communication skills to problem solving and delivering exciting and real world solutions.

Product and Prototyping
This unit will focus upon self-directed practice in which you will define and develop individual rationales and methods of working aimed at identifying, positioning and pre realising your Final Project. Research and practice will be directed and guided by 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, prove and test design outcomes.

Term three

In the third term of the course, you'll apply the knowledge gained through your research to create a final body of work.

Final Project
The Final Project is the culmination of your studies and will form an exposition of the central ideas and concepts developed throughout your MA. There are two components to this:

Portfolio Component: Portfolio work must demonstrate research, coherence, innovation, and a high quality of conception and execution. Your work will reflect the development of in-depth subject knowledge, creative autonomy and the development of a personal strategy for presenting and citing your work. The final presentation of the project and research into presentation possibilities is considered to be a vital element of this unit.

Written component: you will be required to submit a written component in the form of a report. The method of dissemination should be agreed in advance with your tutor. All forms of dissemination will be assessed against a common set of criteria and adhere to academic convention. Your writing must demonstrate clear aims and objectives, a substantial knowledge of criticism and theory in the chosen topic and a coherent argument. It must also demonstrate a critical awareness of your practice and the work of others in the chosen field of research and articulate a critical awareness of the links between theory and practice.

Fees and additional costs

Tuition fees
The course fees per year for 2021 entry are:

UK students full-time - £10,400
UK students part-time - £5,200
EU students full-time - £10,400 (see fee discount information)
International students full-time - £17,500 (standard fee)
International students full-time - £16,800 (full early payment fee)

The course fees for 2022 entry will be available here shortly.

Additional course costs
In addition to the tuition fees please see the additional course costs for 2021 entry. The details for 2022 entry will be available here in due course.

Further information
Find out more about our course fees and any financial support you may be entitled to:

These fees are correct for the stated academic year only. Costs may increase each year during a student’s period of continued registration on course in line with inflation (subject to any maximum regulated tuition fee limit). Any adjustment for continuing students will be at or below the RPI-X forecast rate.

Fee discounts and scholarships

To support our students and alumni to progress to the next level of study, we have developed a new range of fee discounts across a range of courses.

Read more about fee discounts

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.

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.

Lecture theatre, UCA Epsom

Business School, UCA Epsom

UCA Epsom

Business School studios, UCA Epsom

Course connections

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

Visit our 2021 grad show site to see the incredible work created by our graduating students

Visit the 2021 Gradshow

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 requirements

UK entry requirements

An honours degree or equivalent qualification in the subject or 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.

International and EU entry requirements

To view the equivalent entry requirements for your country please select it in the list below.

Pick Your Country

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

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

Pre-sessional English courses in the UK or China

UCA International Foundation courses

The UCA International College

Portfolio requirements

This course doesn’t require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Offer Holder Webinar where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course.

Apply now

Application links - MA Design, Innovation & Brand Management

UK applications

Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:

Apply direct to UCA for September 2021
(Open now)
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2022:

Apply direct to UCA for September 2022
(Register your interest)

International & EU applications

Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:

Apply direct to UCA for September 2021
(Open now)
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2022:

Apply direct to UCA for September 2022
(Register your interest)

When to apply:

You can apply throughout the year but we recommend you try and apply as early as possible so you have time to arrange accommodation and visas, if required.

For more information visit our how to apply pages

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