AAS College

MA User Experience and Service Design - Branding

Thessaloniki, Greece

DURATION

13 Months

LANGUAGES

English

PACE

Full time

APPLICATION DEADLINE

29 Jun 2025

EARLIEST START DATE

06 Oct 2025

TUITION FEES

Request tuition fees

STUDY FORMAT

On-Campus

Introduction

User experience is an important component of branding.

Branding and UX design work together when defining and transmitting the brand identity, ensuring that clients and users understand who they are, what they represent, and connect emotionally with their entire brand.

A brand is not just visual. There is so much more to it than just a logo, which is a common mistake.

A brand could be others’ perception of the company, product or service.

Branding and UX design are intertwined and overlapping parts of what a company or organisation wants to present to the world when creating a website or an app. The brand is the company’s soul and heart, defining what they feel and determining their purpose. UX design is there to interact with users visually, but in some ways can project that brand identity in the details and intention behind them.

Both branding and UX design are seeking to accomplish one major goal: create an emotional connection with the product. Users take in all the information when interacting with an app and website, and the brand’s personality is transmitted through storytelling.

Swiping or scrolling through the pages, a user makes that emotional connection with everything they come in contact with, creating their own story. At the same time, the content, mission, and values further that story, connecting them with the company.

Storytelling is a huge part of human history; the voice, tone, and design interface narrate a story to users.

Admissions

Curriculum

Semester 1

Exploration and Enquiry

This module provides students with the necessary critical, practical and intellectual frameworks to initiate, evaluate, negotiate and develop a sustainable creative practice within their respective field. The module combines presentations from professionals and researchers that provide a forum for peer discussion and debate.

It focuses on the development of self-directed practice-led research and the establishment of a sustainable creative and critical engagement. Advanced digital and analogue skills, technologies and processes will be introduced. Students will audit their own skills and their project needs and resource implications. The module offers students the opportunity to acquire new skills and knowledge and to consider initiating interdisciplinary or strategic partnerships.

Design Thinking

This module enables students to develop an understanding of the user needs and challenge the existing through independent, innovative and disruptive thinking. Students will observe and develop empathy with the target user. This module will enable students in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications, allowing deeper investigation and critical evaluation of knowledge and understanding of the wider theoretical development of design as a discipline.

Semester 2

Specialist Skills Development

This module expands students’ knowledge of user experience, design thinking, and service design, providing creative direction and support for their emerging practice. It covers topics such as narrative construction, emerging digital themes, globalisation, localisation, and aesthetics.

With a focus on theory and practical applications, students develop strategies and research methods for problem-solving, opportunity identification, innovation framing, prototyping, and testing. The module includes a concentrated period of practical research and peer critique, challenging students to explore contemporary issues and design solutions for social impact. It also prepares students to produce a practice-led and critically sound project proposal that generates the foundation for their Master’s Projects.

Design Futures

This module aims to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of design in the 21st century. From artificial intelligence and machine learning to sustainability concerns, designers face numerous and complex challenges. Through lectures, workshops, and practical projects, students will learn about the latest developments in AI and other emerging technologies and how to apply them in the context of UX and service design. The module will also explore the ethical and social implications of these technologies, encouraging students to think critically about the role of design in shaping our future. By combining cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of social and ethical implications, students will be equipped to create sustainable, ethical, and socially responsible products and services that make a positive impact on the world.

Semester 3

Master's Project

This module provides a period of sustained self-motivated and practice-led creative engagement. It brings to a resolution a body of work relevant to the area of focus for the student’s Master's programme, whether interaction design, service design, or design thinking. The module realises key skills and knowledge concerning the management, documentation, evaluation and dissemination of the creative and practice-led research process in relation to these domains. Finally, it also facilitates a sustained independent period of enquiry within a clearly determined creative body of practice, underpinned by exploration of a range of critical and contextual frameworks evidence in a final Master's report.