The Design Student's Handbook: Your Essential Guide to Course, Context and Career

What is design? What are the main design disciplines, and how do they interrelate? How does design theory and context help you improve your studio work? What do you need to know by the end of your course to get a good career? What can you do to become a knowledgeable designer and improve your skills so that you stand out from the crowd?

Whether you are already studying design, thinking about choosing a course, or are well on your way to finding your first job, this essential and uniquely comprehensive book will introduce you to the world of design and support you throughout your studies and on into the industry.

Key features

• Develops your core skills and supports you in making the most of your studies.
• Describes the multi-disciplinary design world by exploring the various design disciplines – graphics, fashion and textiles, three-dimensional design, craft, spatial, interactive media, and theatre, film and television.
• Contains crucial practical information so you’re ready for your career - placements, working with industry and self-employment, networking, job-seeking and how to succeed in your own business.
• Covers the key practical, theoretical and cultural fundamentals of design to help you understand and inform your practice - chapters on creativity and innovation, history, culture and context, how to communicate design, colour theory, aesthetics, and how to design with ethical, social and responsible considerations.
• Comprises chapters written by designers and lecturers, all experts in their fields.
• Includes stories, career profiles and first-hand quotes by students, established designers and industry specialists exploring what it’s like to study and to work in the design industry today.
• Identifies important books and websites for further reading.

The Design Student’s Handbook will guide you along the road to a successful and fulfilling career and is an essential text for studying any of the design disciplines.

Jane Bartholomew is a Lecturer in Textile Design and the Quality Manager in the School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University. As an experienced design practitioner, she has run her own textile design business and undertaken consultancy work. Her interest in the ways students learn fuels her present research interests.

Steve Rutherford is a Lecturer in Furniture and Product Design in the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University. He has wide experience working in the industry as an Ergonomist, Design Consultant and Industrial Designer.