Master Designer in Sustainable Innovation

General

Program Description

Grade of Designer in Sustainable Innovation

You’ll be educated to become a designer in sustainable innovation and to develop the required skills to drive creativity in a multi-disciplinary team.

For entry into the first year of the program, all types of secondary education majors are accepted. For enrolment into the 2nd, 3rd or 4th-year level, the variety of backgrounds thanks to former study paths of our students, are an enrichening factor for sustainable innovation and the teaching related to it. Before entering our institution and according to the individual level of the student, The SDS proposes upgrading courses in the field of drawing technics.

A transversal program with many multidisciplinary entries

Learning by doing

At The SDS, Design is taught by “doing”, with a responsible attitude towards the great opportunities of sustainable development. Corporate companies work with our institution to develop real projects of sustainable innovation. The project teams are composed of students from each study level with their multi-disciplinary (architecture, design, engineering, marketing, social sciences) and multi-cultural backgrounds (international students).

New methods

Design thinking, frugal innovation, knowledge design, social innovation, are some of our pedagogical methods. International exchange periods are also an essential part of our design education.

Thinking by drawing: Drawing is the first tool of a designer. Drawing allows materializing imagination, to develop the transversal dialogue between different job profiles, to enhance the representation of brand cultures and of the world, it also helps the designer to think, holding a drawing pen in his hand, about new creative stories for the future.
Sustainable design: How to conceive storyboards for the future, with a responsible focus on societal, environmental, economic and cultural concerns of the world (the 4 pillars of sustainable development)? Eco-design, analysis of product life cycle, bio-mimetics are new creative methods.
Social sciences: If the definition of design is “how to help mankind to have a better life on our planet”, the knowledge of others is the most central understanding for a designer. User sociology, anthropology, semiotics are fundamental pieces of knowledge of all design processes.
Learning by doing: What can be more attractive for a future professional designer than being part of a team, facing the demand of sustainable innovation for a major corporate company right upon the first year of studies? Learning by doing includes the encounter of the real professional life, to build a professional network for future internships and job opportunities, to discuss with people from different generational perspectives.
Prototyping: Nowadays the manufacturing of products is in hand reach. Mock-up and analogical prototyping (with traditional tools) and numeric tools (at the fab-lab of our institution, 3D printers, laser cutters), allow to confirm the shapes of sketched products. Prototyping is also possible via electronic constructions of interactive objects.
Innovation methods: Design thinking, frugal innovation, knowledge design, bio-mimetics, social innovation, open innovation, are some of the essential methods to learn, to apply them to diverse types of conception. At the SDS we even design our own design methodology!
Digital tools: Following the manual drawing, the numeric tool is taking over. CAO and DAO in 2D and 3D are fundamental to represent, conceive, illustrate and animate objects within their spatial context. The numeric tool is also essential for communication between the different profiles of creators.
Other methods: Engineering, marketing, architecture, sociology are next to design the big actors of innovation. To understand and to speak the language of the other professions, to receive the added value of different perspectives, to work in crossed teams, in a transversal and pluri-disciplinary way, to mix the different cultures of the world are some of the many ways to boost creativity.