Professional Design Practice master students carry out projects with local community groups

DIT Staff: John Greene

As part of the MA in Professional Design Practice (DT548) postgraduate students work on a wide range of visual communication projects such as, identity, branding, website design, publication design and promotional work for the community sector.

The focus is on thorough research of a clients needs, developing appropriate design concepts and then producing a final design proposal. The design students provide comprehensive guidelines and sample visuals that can be used by printers or web-developers to complete the production phase. Students separately may choose to take on the production work for the client, but students are not required by the college to do this as part of their assignment. Students work on these projects both as a classgroup in their NGO Core module and individually as part of their Professional Design Practice module 

Example of such projects:

In 2009/10 students worked on individual projects with different community partners that included Beaumont Hospital (developing a wayfinder system within the hopsital), Dublin Community Growers (website design) and SLWC/Garda Road Safety Unit (branding of the project College Awareness of Road Safety)

In 2008/2009 students worked with the Irish Leprosy Missions to produce design concepts for a new fund raising initiative. This took the form of a catalogue to promote the products produced by people who are affected by leprosy in Africa and Asia.

Also in 2008/2009 a student worked with Home-Start Blanchardstown to design a publication produced to celebrate their 21st birthday (see here) and another student worked with the Whitefriar Area Community Council to develop an information website for the prison community and their families.

In 2007/2008 students worked on a project with the National Drug Treatment Centre and designed a series of essential information cards, relating to addiction services, for their clients. These cards could be collected and combined into a pocket-sized holder, which allowed each person to create a pack with the information most relevant to their individual needs.

What are the benefits for the students?

Live projects, help students to develop their ability to deal with complex real life design problems. In a real project students have to consider a wide range of issues that can affect how an organisation operates, and then take these into account when they do their assignments. This helps students to become better problem solvers and eases the transition from the world of study to the world of work.

What are the benefits for the community?    

Communities can benefit from the professional advise and guidance they receive from staff and students involved in the programme.

Example community partners: