Design Crafts: Glass, Ceramics and Jewellery

Our Design Crafts course at Swansea College of Art, UWTSD, lets you explore your creativity and develop design and creative 3D-making skills. You will learn to work professionally with glass, ceramics, and jewellery, finding your creative voice through a blend of traditional skills and contemporary technologies like laser cutting, waterjet cutting, and 3D printing.

You will work with a diverse range of material and process practices, such as ceramics, cold and kiln-formed glass, wood, metal, plastics, fiberglass, resins, and textiles. The programme also covers jewellery, mould making, CAD/CAM, and 3D scanning.

Our course provides a programme of hands-on workshop-based education approach through specialist workshops, underpinned by contextual and historical studies, placements, internships and residencies.

Throughout the course, you will gain comprehensive knowledge and practical skills, developing innovative approaches to sustainable craft practices. You will build critical awareness and resourcefulness, preparing you to contribute to the evolving field of design crafts.

You will be taught by a team of established craft practitioners with international reputations and supported by an experienced technical team. Your learning will be further enriched by visiting lecturers and practitioners. Entrepreneurial skills are a key part of the course, ensuring you become an industry-ready professional.

The course is perfect for aspiring craftspersons, jewellers, ceramicists, textile artists, designer-makers, and glass artists. You will have access to specialist facilities that support your creative practice and design and making journey.

Modules

Our Philosophy 
Our Design Crafts course emphasises hands-on learning and creative exploration. We focus on developing your technical skills, critical thinking, and innovative approaches through practical workshops and contextual studies, preparing you for a successful career in the creative industries.

Entrepreneurism is embedded within the course, with wide-ranging discussions of the diverse approaches to developing and sustaining a creative practice as well as finding routes to employment within the immediate sector and beyond.  This will be enhanced through regular lectures from visiting practicing makers and associated professionals.

Year 1

In your first year, you will be introduced to a broad range of materials and processes, including ceramics, glass, and jewellery. You will develop fundamental skills in traditional hand-making techniques and emerging technologies such as CAD/CAM, laser cutting, and 3D printing. Modules will cover introductory techniques and basic design principles, along with an understanding of professional practice in the digital era and various ways of thinking and perceiving design crafts.

First-year modules are designed to establish a core platform of essential skills for all students and encourage the development of design and making in glass, ceramics and jewellery

• Contextual Practices to develop and enrich the student’s knowledge of design and craft.

• Design and Make modules that develop 2D and 3D drawing and visual literacy through materials.

• Professional Practice to gain core skills in digital portfolios and online presence.

• Material workshops to build the student’s skills in working with glass, ceramics and other materials.

• Design and material knowledge to provide an understanding of design and craft.

Compulsory

• Ways of Thinking (10 credits)

• Ways of Perceiving (10 credits)

• Design and Make 1: Introduction to Ceramics, Glass and Jewellery (30 credits )

• Design and Make 2: 3D Thinking (30 credits )

• Professional Practice 1: Digital Era (20 credits)

• Professional Practice 2: Making Futures (20 credits)

Year 2

Your second year focuses on deepening your technical expertise and creative exploration. You will develop the knowledge, practical abilities and creativity to undertake design and craft artefact realisation. You will be able to work as an individual designer, maker or as part of a multidisciplinary team for the manufacture of design crafts, experiencing ‘live briefs and client-based scenarios.

Modules will include advanced design and making techniques, commercial output, and research practices within the context of design crafts.

Compulsory

• Research in Context (10 credits)

• Research in Practice (10 credits)

• Design and Make 3: A Design Crafts Challenge (30 credits )

• Design and Make 4: Commercial Output (30 credits )

• Professional Practice 3: Commercial Challenge (20 credits)

• Professional Practice 4: Design Identities (20 credits)

Year 3

In the final year, you will specialise further, honing your skills in your chosen area of interest. Third-year modules are designed to allow you to formulate your own individual career direction and aspirations as a design crafts graduate. You can select and manage your own personal and major projects with the support of the staff team so that you can demonstrate your core skills and experience and develop:

• Advanced knowledge of design crafts, thinking and practice.

• A personal design philosophy to underpin their current and future practice.

• Advanced awareness of the value of their intellectual and creative ability and a well-defined strategy for personal brand and career development.

Compulsory

• Advanced Creative Enquiry (20 credits)

• Independent Project (40 credits)

• Major Project (60 credits)

https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/programme-courses/undergraduate/art-design-and-photography/design-crafts-glass-ceramics-and