Industrial Design

Industrial design at Massey University’s Wellington Campus is the leading industrial design programme in New Zealand. Industrial designers must understand peoples’ experiences and interactions with products, create innovative and responsible products, and challenge the systems that these products are part of. By exploring new ways of designing and the needs of society, culture and the environment, our programme produces highly innovative industrial designers who contribute to the shape of the future. Graduates are over-represented as winners in national and international design competitions and work all around the world in leading companies like Apple, Fisher and Paykal, Lenovo, Nike, Philips, Dyson, IDEO and Formway.

Industrial design focuses on designing desirable products that humanise new and existing technologies and enhance peoples’ lives. To help you explore what ‘desirable’ means and how people live, our programme concentrates on design and research in areas ranging from commercial to industrial products - often in collaboration with industry. In mostly studio-based sessions you will use traditional and digital processes to explore design ideas, and refine them through drawings and model making in our advanced 3D workshop into desirable, responsible products. You will also learn how to conduct yourself as a design professional and how business success hinges on the effective use of good design.

First Year Students across the BFA (Hons) and BDes (Hons) share a core suite of papers in their first year.

Second Year: Your second year introduces specialist industrial design skills and processes. It builds on these skills in focussed design projects that provide an introduction to the design and manufacturing of products as well as exploring what ‘desirability’ means.

Third Year: You will explore more complex design issues such as sustainability, interface and experience design. You will also apply advanced modelling and research processes to sophisticated design projects.

Fourth Year: In your fourth year you will undertake your major project - a design project built around a self-selected topic. This will involve the application of all the processes and knowledge you’ve developed, culminating in a sophisticated product design solution.