Design+Change, Master Programme
120 creditsThe Master Programme in Design + Change is an advanced-level two-year programme within Design, the main field of study.
Design involves creativity, criticality and transformation. Design calls into question the state of things and makes an impact. Design challenges preconceptions, prejudices, norms, and stereotypes and provokes emotions, thoughts, sensibilities and actions. Design can enhance our lives and our relationships to the world. It can make us attentive and empathic to the ecological and socio-cultural systems in which we live. In a world of many challenges, design can be an agent for sustainable change.
In shaping our futures, designers will face unprecedented challenges compared to what conventional designers faced during the twentieth century. In fact, the role of the designer will and should change. Instead of only designing for mass production, which was important during the first phase of industrialisation, designers of futures must handle multiple roles and increasingly complex issues. As agents for change, designers will play key roles in shaping futures of sustainability.
On the Design+Change Master’s Programme at Linnaeus University we challenge the traditional role of the designer, working across disciplinary and media boundaries to define new roles that meet contemporary and future needs. For design to confront the crises we are now facing, we need to work together with other academic disciplines and cultural practices and in partnerships with professional designers, community organisations, businesses, activists and governmental bodies.
Students on the Design+Change Master’s Programme can choose to extend their existing knowledge in a specific design field or explore new ones. The programme focusses on artistic and experimental processes and creative research, and students will develop their capacity for critical reflection in making well rounded and futures oriented design proposals. Particular attention is paid to contemporary and emerging design disciplines such as critical and speculative design, social design, metadesign and design activism. Furthermore, students are introduced to and practice relevant methods for questioning the current state of things, opening up to ways of thinking and shaping futures creatively and differently.
Career
Our aim is to develop artistic maturity and foster responsible designer roles with a focus on sustainability and design as a change agent. At LNU, you will develop your skills with exploratory work, concept development and implementation, in complex projects.
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (Main field of study: Design)
International possibilities
During the course of the programme, you can choose to study abroad through exchange studies to gain international experience. In that case, you will conduct some of your studies at one of our many partner universities around the world. You can also choose to do your internship abroad. What is more, you can do field work abroad as part of your degree project. This involves collecting material abroad for your degree project, for a period of roughly two months. Learn more about what international possibilities are offered at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University.
Application and portfolio
The application process consists of two steps. First you need to apply to the programme online at at www.universityadmissions.se (in English), or www.antagning.se (in Swedish). Then you need to submit your portfolio together with your other documentation regarding eligibility on your pages on www.universityadmissions.se (in English), or www.antagning.se (in Swedish).
You find instructions for the portfolio below.
The application deadline is 17 January 2022, application code LNU-F1536.
The deadline by which portfolio and statement of purpose must be received by LNU is 1 February. To be submitted as documents on universityadmissions.se.
Student portfolio
Look at student projects on designportfoliolnu.se
Student projects
Clara Veneziano-Coen
In odd times of uncertainty, design too can become uncertain. Two Point O: Växjö Crisis Edition is an archiving project shaped in a collaborative process with citizens of Växjö. The archive is a collection of objects relevant in times of crisis called Care Biopics.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/future2pointo/
Daniel Gustafsson
My collaborator Ebba and I have developed a new Paralympic seat for the sport of rowing. As a norm-creative innovation, it is a design that understands and addresses the particularities of the individual body and its specific needs. The project investigates the combination of co-creation, craft and norm-creative methods as a pragmatic and alternative approach to sports equipment.
Karina Zaitceva
My project raises questions about the occupation of urban spaces by motor vehicles. Design activism and urban social movements inform my proposal to reclaim the public space as a pedestrian. I assembled a DIY pedestrian body parking artefact and placed it at on-street car parking spaces. With my artifact I was trying to bring a balance in the use of these shared collective areas.
More about the Department of Design
Växjö – the student city with a living campus
Just south of Växjö’s city centre you will find Linnaeus University’s campus. In Växjö, many students choose to live on campus.
Here you will have five minutes’ walking distance to friends, restaurants, lecture rooms, gym, grocery store, the University Library, nature trails, and student pubs. If you live in another part of Växjö, you can quickly get to the university by bus or bicycle.
With its 90 000 inhabitants, Växjö is one of the fastest growing cities in Sweden. Here you will find the famous Småland entrepreneurship spirit and a lot of companies, for instance within the IT industry – perfect for when you are looking for an internship position or a job. Växjö is also one of Europe’s greenest cities where you have easy access to nature, forest and lakes.
