Design, Master's, 2 years

Presentation

Objectives and content

The master's programme is an opportunity for specialisation with a time frame that allows for experimentation, trial and error, and change of standpoint. Each student applies to the programme with a project and are thus their own source and main instrument. The main focus of the programme is development of the master's project, which is a major, independent project. Students choose a specialisation within one of the areas of study at the Department of Design.

Specialisation involves investigating, experimenting and combining fragments and raw materials as a basis for design processes that are expressed in visions and concepts. Master's students must strike a balance between their own perspectives and others' views, general considerations and their own goals, and the world as it is today and future needs.

The master's programme integrates theory and practice, with emphasis on the relationship between design as a creative practice and design as a theoretical subject. Research through design requires interaction and synergies between different working methods and approaches, as well as between own creative work and critical reflection.

Career

Further studies

Designers with a master's degree from the University of Bergen can adopt various designer roles and lead complex design processes, depending on their academic interests and selected specialisation in the master's programme. In working life, they can contribute agency and independent thinking, rooted in relevant interpretation frameworks and contemporary perspectives on current challenges in society, development of ideas and concept, translation of ideas into action and tangible results, projects and processesproactive collaboration in groups, both design teams and interdisciplinary groups.

Graduates who specialised in visual communication have an overall perspective on how ideas and concepts can be conveyed using different tools, materials and media. Key disciplines such as typography, illustration, visual identity, editorial design, moving images and interactivity are all forms of expression that can be used to render ideas visible, tangible, and understandable to others.

Graduates who specialised in furniture and spatial design / interior architecture work on the relations between people and their surroundings, expressing their ideas and concepts in the form of three-dimensional objects and spatial forms. They focus on the correlation between furniture design and interior architecture. Form, colour, materials, lighting, ergonomics and construction are central topics.

Designers are employed in public and private enterprises. Many are entrepreneurs who start their own business or individual proprietorships.

What you Learn

Required Learning Outcomes

Graduates who complete the master's degree have the following qualifications:

Knowledge and skills

Designers can:

• work methodically and experimentally in design processes
• develop, execute and communicate major, independent design projects
• initiate and lead complex design processes
• illuminate and interpret current social and political issues through own work
• identify problem areas and suggest solutions for design situations, based on insight into the needs of various users
• articulate - verbally and visually - design practice intentions, values and opinions to different target groups, also outside their own area of expertise
• apply knowledge from research and theory in own work

General competence

The designer can:

• communicate and interact effectively with others in development processes, within and outside their own field of study
• take professional disagreement and interpersonal relationships into informed account
• critically evaluate their own progress and renew their own learning strategies