RCA Design Thinking and Innovation Masterclass

Posted by Royal College of Art – Executive Education

Understand the purpose of design thinking in promoting innovation, and learn real-world applications and strategies for design thinking, live online with Professor Emeritus Jeremy Myerson.

Explore the emergent role of design within the landscape of innovation, the key players in design-led innovation teams, how to combine convergent and divergent thinking, the real world versus the world of ideas, the power of visualisation and ways to scale up your design concept.

Using case studies and innovation stories that draw from current exhibitions and the permanent collection at the Design Museum, the masterclass will explore the curatorial context and provide a rich and stimulating mixture of new ideas and practical tools.

At the core of the masterclass is the opportunity to work as part of a creative team on a real-world project that you bring to the session. Whatever business sector you are in, or level of design interest or expertise, this course will equip you with a robust model to apply design thinking in your own working life.

Our approach to design thinking
The Royal College of Art views Design Thinking as a form of people-centred innovation. Design solutions therefore derive from reframing problems from the perspective of the citizen or the customer, not the producer or service provider. The process is not scientifically neutral – it involves showing empathy and engagement with people’s lived experience. It also means resolving the contradictions between the real world of barriers and constraints and the abstract world of imagination and creative ideas. This masterclass will provide the tools and frameworks to bridge this divide.  

  • Discover
  • Define
  • Design
  • Develop
  • Deliver
  • Diffuse/Distribute

Dates: 2 – 3 May 2023

Duration: 1.5 days

Day 1: 2 May 2023: 1pm – 6pm BST (registration from 12.30pm) at the Design Museum

Day 2: 3 May 2023: 10am – 5pm BST (registration from 9.30pm) at the RCA Battersea campus

Mode: In person on campus

Course Overview

Using case studies and innovation stories that draw from current exhibitions at the Design Museum, the masterclass will explore the curatorial context and provide a rich and stimulating mixture of new ideas and practical tools. At the core of the masterclass is the opportunity to work as part of a creative team on a real-world project that you bring to the session. Each team will have a tutor and online tools will support ethnographic, brainstorming, creative making and concept evaluation exercises. Whatever business sector you are in, or level of design interest or expertise, this course will equip you with a robust model to apply design thinking in your own working life.  

For more information, please visit our webpage:

https://www.rca.ac.uk/study/programme-finder/design-thinking-innovation-collaboration-design-museum/

 **BIMA members get a 10% discount off the full price fee. To request a special booking link, contact short-courses@rca.ac.uk before booking by stating your name & that you are a BIMA member.

Places are limited so make sure to book your place as soon as possible!

Speakers

Professor Jeremy Myerson is the first-ever Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design at the Royal College of Art, with a remit to encourage ‘design that improves quality of life’. An academic, author and activist in design for more than 35 years, he began his working life as a journalist and was founder-editor of Design Week in 1986. He co-founded the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the RCA in 1999, and his research interests focus on the role of design in social, demographic and technological change. He was director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design from 1999 to October 2015.

A graduate of the RCA, Jeremy Myerson is the author of many books, chapters, papers and articles on people-centred and inclusive design. He is also director of the WORKTECH Academy, a visiting fellow at the Oxford Institute for Population Ageing, and sits on the advisory boards of design institutes in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Korea.

In 2017, Jeremy Myerson co-curated the Design Museum’s inaugural exhibition in Kensington, NEW OLD: Designing for Our Future Selves, exploring the potential for design to enhance the experience of later life. Featuring work by RCA alumni, including Konstantin Grcic, Sam Hecht, Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh and Priestman Goode, the exhibition looked at how innovative design can help people lead fuller, healthier, more rewarding lives into old age – and asked whether designers are ready to meet the future challenges of an ageing society. For more information, visit: www.rca.ac.uk/new-old

Professor Jeremy Myerson speaking about the RCA Design Thinking and Innovation course.

Adrian Westaway is an inventor, engineer and experience designer on a mission to make the human-technology interaction meaningful and delightful. 

As co-founder of Special Projects he harnesses technology, inclusive research and magic thinking to devise design propositions that feel familiar yet wondrous. A self-taught magician since the age of 11 and full member of the Magic Circle, he relentlessly pursues his conviction that ‘designers should use magic thinking and try to introduce surprise, delight and fuzzy feeling in the things they create’.

After becoming the first ever James Dyson Fellow in 2007, and a Fellow of the Royal Commission of 1851, in 2010, for his work on interactive lighting systems, Adrian built a playground in Peru, had whisky with Derren Brown as a student in Bristol, and tried to make his teachers disappear.

His contagious passion for magic and engineering made him a beloved tutor and lecturer in Design & Innovation at Queen Mary University and the Royal College of Art in London and a visiting faculty member at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. There he teaches ‘Magic and Design’, a nomadic workshop where students are introduced to methods of using design and technology to create enchanted products and experiences.

Date

Tue, 02 May 2023, 13:00 - Wed, 03 May 2023, 17:00

Location

RCA Battersea campus and the Design Museum,
City of London

LIVE ONLINE  

Price

£900

BIMA Member Price

£BIMA Members are eligible for a 10% discount

Royal College of Art – Executive Education

Short courses at the RCA are offered throughout the year to provide unparalleled opportunities for participants to access its world-leading teaching, researchers & practitioners.

We offer a growing portfolio of online Short Courses and Executive Masterclasses that include workshops, summer schools and masterclasses for individuals and organisations.

Our courses are designed to address the professional and personal development goals of our participants in subject areas that include: design thinking, contemporary art, curating, design, architecture, service design, interior design and visual communication.

Courses develop personal and professional networks. We attract a global mix of participants and have welcomed over 64 different nationalities since transitioning to online delivery.

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