Digital Design with a Year in Industry

Digital design is a discipline that sits at the boundary of creativity and technology, asking how interactive products, services, and experiences can be designed to be both beautiful and usable. It draws on graphic design, user experience design, interaction design, and the technical skills to build what you design, combining visual intelligence with an understanding of how people interact with digital systems. The creative industries increasingly depend on designers who can work across this territory, from web and app design to interactive installations and digital communications.

The University of Kent's four-year full-time Digital Design with a Year in Industry degree carries a typical entry tariff of 120 points. As the course itself describes, it combines practical and theoretical approaches to digital design, allowing you to design and build interactive products and services of the future while equipping you with skills sought after by employers in the creative industries. The year in industry is a structured element of the programme, giving you substantial professional experience in a design role before you graduate, which is particularly valuable in a sector where portfolio and practical experience matter as much as academic qualifications.

You will develop skills in visual communication, user experience design, interaction design, digital prototyping, and web and application development alongside the theoretical understanding of design thinking, human-computer interaction, and visual culture.

Graduates work as digital designers, UX designers, UI designers, interaction designers, product designers, web designers, and creative technologists across agencies, in-house design teams, technology companies, and media organisations. The combination of design thinking and technical build skills is particularly valued in roles where you need to understand and contribute to both the creative and the technical dimensions of a product. Postgraduate study in design, user experience, or creative technology is an option for those wanting to develop a more specialised focus.