London, United Kingdom
DEGREE TYPE
MA
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
30 Jun 2025*
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
Request tuition fees
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* as the RCA received a high number of applications we encourage you to apply as early as possible to secure your place on your programme
* Visit the RCA website to find out about fees for this programme as well as scholarship and funding opportunities
Key Summary
2025 Graduate Exhibition - 19 June-19 July.
Visit RCA2025, a series of exhibitions and events and activities showcasing the work of graduating RCA students across our London campuses.
Introduction
The Design Products MA explores new terrain for designing products aiming to evolve new design disciplines and practices. We question ‘What is a product?’ and the assumption of adding products to uncover critical questioning to inform cutting-edge creative practices for designing better futures. Our program ethos focuses on a range of ideas for exploring these new areas for product design practice including design subtraction, multi-species design, circularity, questions for action, products delimited, design doing, design justice, and decolonizing design. We anticipate that these areas will evolve and adapt year-to-year.
We work in collaboration with industry but also explore new locations and relationships for designing products: the experiences and impacts they generate whether these are design interventions or working with start-ups, governments, or global agencies. We measure the success of our design impacts against the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals and the design territory of products within systems.
Meet the RCA
We host a range of online and on-campus open days as well as recruitment events in cities around the world. These events can include 1-to-1 meetings and portfolio advice, informal chats, presentations and sessions with staff, students and alumni.
Check the RCA event webpage for details of upcoming events including events in India and the USA.
Admissions
Curriculum
Programme structure
The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units. Learning will develop during the programme through terms 1 and 2 via a series of short projects focusing on experimentation and developing a strong and adaptive personal creative process, building a portfolio of projects culminating in the independent research project in term 3.
Term 1
In the first term, we help you locate your own practice at the forefront of the design products landscape in the unit Locating Practice. This is supported by enhancing research skills and identifying additional technical and intellectual skills to develop new and improved design methods and approaches connecting research and making.
Experimental Design allows you to expand the range and ambition of your design practice through various forms of experimentation to uncover new skills, methods and ideas. This unit covers a broad spectrum of experimentation from methods to materials, technology, making, manufacturing, futures, social and participatory.
Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit.
Term 2
The second term engages with Advanced Practice by deepening your own creative methods through specialist focus via elective programme platform options, based on programme ethos themes and School-wide electives. Programme specialist design input is delivered via platform electives in the Advanced Practice unit.
You will also collaborate with other School of Design programme disciplines in a team-based School-wide Grand Challenge, tackling a major emerging strategic design issue. There are also opportunities to take part in commercially sponsored projects in terms 2 and 3 depending on availability.
Term 3
In the third term, you will demonstrate that they can draw together learning from terms 1 and 2 by independently developing, managing and delivering a high-resolution advanced Design Products project (Independent Research Project). The emphasis here is showing how you have brought together skills, learning and design practices from across terms 1 and 2 to design and deliver a project that sits at the forefront of the design products landscape and enables the delivery of a design discourse that argues for the new design space within which it sits.
The Independent Research Project (IRP) will be delivered through a supervision model, and it is expected that students will spend the majority of their time on personal study and making. We anticipate that students will have the option of completing term 3 (IRP) remotely or in their own studio/employment/placement/designer in residence subject to a satisfactory IRP proposal agreed upon in advance.
Program Tuition Fee
Rankings
The Royal College of Art has been ranked the number 1 university for art & design internationally for the 9th consecutive year, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 – the largest world-wide survey of academic and industry opinion.
Scholarships and Funding
House of Fraser Bursary
Supporting students in any MA programme from the UK (Preferably a Scottish national), experiencing financial hardship
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: £10,000
Sir Frank Bowling Scholarships
The Scholarship supports 21 UK MA, MRes and PhD students every year from across all RCA MA, MRes and PhD disciplines.
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Architecture Pathway MRes RCA, Architecture MPhil/PhD, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Fine Arts & Humanities Pathway MRes RCA, Arts & Humanities MPhil/PhD, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Communication Design Pathway MRes RCA, Communication MPhil/PhD, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA, Design Pathway MRes RCA, Design MPhil/PhD, Healthcare & Design MRes, Intelligent Mobility MPhil/PhD, Materials Science MPhil/PhD, Computer Science MPhil/PhD
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: £21,000
The RCA Logitech Scholarship Programme
To provide scholarships to students in any RCA programme, from underrepresented communities, and facing financial challenges. Preference will be given to those identifying as Black or Black British; Asian or Asian British; or from a mixed background.
Eligible Programmes: Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA
Eligible fee status: Any
Value: Up to sixteen full-fee scholarships
The Tony Snowdon Scholarship
Applicants must make an application via the application portal on the Snowdon Trust website from Jan 2023: https://www.snowdontrust.org/scholarships
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Architecture Pathway MRes RCA, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Fine Arts & Humanities Pathway MRes RCA, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Communication Design Pathway MRes RCA, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA, Design Pathway MRes RCA, Healthcare & Design MRes
Eligible fee status: Any
Value: Up to £15,000 in tuition fees + £15,000 maintenance support
The Virgil Abloh Scholarship
Supporting School of Design students from the UK from under-represented communities. Preference for those identifying as Black or Black British (Caribbean); Black or Black British (African), or another Black background.
Eligible Programmes: Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: One scholarship valued at £35,000
LoveFrom, Scholarship
Eligible Programmes: Design Products MA
Eligible fee status:
- UK fee status
- To support students from underrepresented communities.
Value: Two scholarships valued at £30,000 each