Bachelor of Design (Honours)

The Bachelor of Design (Honours) is an advanced design degree offered to students who achieve academic excellence in their undergraduate studies. Students graduate with skills and expertise that are in demand from industry, the business sector, and society: strong disciplinary abilities; plus proven capability in problem-reframing and solving, co-design and participatory methods, design research, and design strategy. The course is unique, giving students the choice between an Independent Practice Project or a Professional Partnership Project. (Either option offers the opportunity to produce a major work or live project solution, plus a dissertation.) And graduates are sought-after because they possess high-level communication skills, advanced critical thinking skills, and the ability to generate innovative approaches to design problems. Graduates are on the path to becoming experts in their field. Honours graduates possess expertise that makes them highly employable, as well as being eligible for Masters, PhD and postgraduate training (including scholarships and awards). This course allows students to develop further design expertise while choosing from two research driven, industry informed and socially responsive pathways: Seminars, masterclasses, workshops, and industry events are offered in state-of-the-art facilities. Students are supported in a specialised creative environment by mentors and experts from diverse design disciplines: fashion & textile design, product design, social design, strategic and service design, visual communication, photography, motion graphics, AI & AR, and more.

Global career opportunities for Honours graduates in product design, fashion & textile design, visual communication, creative industries and social, strategic and service design are expanding. Professional designers are now employed well beyond the creative industries, for example to bring design thinking to business and community sectors and to lead design projects. UTS design Honours graduates are highly sought after in existing and emergent fields. Honours graduates develop disciplinary expertise while also possessing skills to practice beyond their specific discipline and contribute to broader outcomes. Honours graduates know how to work independently and thrive in teams and are equipped with the high-level communication and advocacy skills to become writers, researchers, editors, and critics. In fashion & textile design, global career opportunities for Honours graduates include fashion designer, textile designer, pattern cutter, art/creative director, print designer and work in fashion production and fashion forecasting. Some graduates start their own fashion design business, while others work within an established company locally or with international brands. Graduates specialising in product design enjoy careers as in-house product designers in a manufacturing company or working as a design consultant. Graduates work in emerging fields such as service and strategic design or digital interaction design, adapting advanced technologies for new experiences and networked environments. Integrated education also allows graduates to move beyond design to managing production, distribution and the marketing of new products. Honours also prepares graduates for further study in specialised fields such as transport design or associated professional disciplines. As a critical discipline in today's complex information rich world, graduates specialising in visual communication and photography experiment with emerging and traditional technologies to expand how text and image, whether data-driven, generative, moving or still, can provide new frameworks for social and cultural change. Incorporating a wide range of practices, graduates work in information visualisation, interaction design, motion design, photographic practice and photographic studios, publishing, web media, wayfinding, creative code, machine learning, 3D technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality, as well as service and strategy design. Honours graduates also continue to study at the postgraduate level in both coursework or research degrees, as well as qualify for prestigious postgraduate scholarships.

Students must complete 48 credit points of honours subjects including 24-credit-point of core subjects and 24cp of options.