Furniture and Product Design

Furniture and product design is a discipline that asks you to think about the physical world with both rigour and creativity. At its best, design in this field improves the quality of everyday life: a well-designed chair is not just functional, it reflects an understanding of materials, manufacturing, ergonomics, aesthetics, and the context in which it will be used. Product design more broadly extends this thinking to objects ranging from household goods to medical devices to consumer electronics, requiring designers who can move fluently between conceptual development, technical drawing, prototyping, and production-aware thinking.

Northumbria University's three-year full-time Furniture and Product Design programme develops all of these capacities in a practical, studio-centred environment. You will work through the full design process from initial research and concept generation through to resolved, manufacturable outcomes, using hand skills, digital tools including CAD and CAM, and workshop-based making to develop and test your ideas. Material knowledge, understanding how wood, metal, plastics, and emerging materials behave and can be worked, is central to both furniture and product design, and you will build this through direct making experience alongside theoretical study.

The programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, which together provide rich professional experience in design studios, manufacturers, or related organisations, as well as international exposure that broadens your design awareness and cultural reference points. Northumbria has strong industry connections and an active design culture that prepares students for the realities of professional practice.

You will develop a portfolio that demonstrates your design process, your technical skills, and your ability to develop ideas from concept to finished resolution.

Graduates work as furniture designers, product designers, design researchers, and design managers in studios, manufacturing companies, consultancies, and in-house design teams across consumer goods, healthcare, interiors, and transport sectors.