Master’s Programme in Collaborative and Industrial Design

In Collaborative and industrial design programme we learn to design products, systems and services. We learn to understand what and why we design. For us design is professional expertise, but also an inclusive culture and mindset of creating objects and practices. We believe in the impact of design on human wellbeing, profitable business, sustainable innovation, and vivid cultural discourse. Our alumni change the world as design practitioners and experts, in design and innovation leadership and management roles, in design education and research and they continue learning in doctoral studies.
 

We focus on socially, technically and culturally complex challenges and we respond to those with simple and elegant solutions that blend all the stakeholders’ stands with our own. We work with up-to-date design tools, methods, prototypes and processes to get our design assignments completed smoothly and ambitiously. We also care about what should and shouldn’t be designed, look at the emerging and alternative practices of design and take initiative to change the culture and profession of design.
 

We assemble a dozen of core courses that form the backbone of our curriculum. These deal with, first, industrial design of products, new technologies, product architectures and systems. Second, we teach collaborative and human centred design approaches that we apply for product, interaction and service design. Third, we offer courses in design strategy and innovation, design leadership and commercial role of design. In addition we devise topical projects with varying content and support students to development of personal strengths. We organise studies jointly with other units of Aalto University and University of Helsinki. These deal with product development, service design and research, human centred design, design management, urban planning and entrepreneurship. We also collaborate with external partners such as companies, public bodies and NGOs and our master theses deal with real life design challenges.
 

We learn by doing and apply theory for identifying, framing and solving design problems. We merge education with research. Our research teams take part in teaching and students take part in research. Our courses last usually seven weeks and require intensive full-time participation. They consist of lectures, workshops, practical design tasks and literature assignments. They are often cross-disciplinary and multi-cultural. Teaching language is English.

Become an Aalto University student! (aalto.fi/en/studies)

CoID web pages (coid.aalto.fi)