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ID402 GRADUATION PROJECT

Course Objectives

The course aims to enable students to: 

• carry out a real-life design project taking advice from an external advisor located in Turkey, considering the facilities and resources of the advisor and the requirements of potential markets;
• conduct interdisciplinary work by collaborating with professionals from the marketing, production, and design disciplines;
• acquire and develop a self-initiative approach to defining a design problem/opportunity and preparing a strategy in order to formulate an appropriate design solution;
• acquire professional skills to generate contacts with relevant external advisors in order to pursue research and design;
• acquire professional skills and fluency to communicate ideas and design solutions with external advisors as well as course instructors;
• manage a design project with an intense exploratory approach to the issues governed by the design problem/opportunity, and to undertake research to develop awareness of the needs of users and industries;
• frame their project critically and intellectually within a ‘problem space’ and a ‘solution space’ and to reciprocate between the two spaces to reach creative and impactful final design proposals;
• document materials accumulated and generated throughout the design process to gain orderly working discipline;
• present their design proposal at several stages of development accompanied with a comprehensive documentation of the supporting research and design processes;
• follow a predetermined timetable for the project in a professional and punctual manner.

Course Content

Developing a capstone project over the course of a term, working in collaboration with external advisors including industrial firms, design consultancies, non-governmental organizations, public sector bodies, and individual experts. Identifying a design opportunity through design research and developing a comprehensive design solution in response. Demonstrating effective process management and communication skills. Advancing designerly skills and abilities by exploring new tools and techniques, adopting a critical approach, thinking on multiple levels, and documenting the process in an organized manner. Presenting the project to a panel of experts at a public exhibition.

Course Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, each student will have: 

• determined his/her areas of professional interest, and proposed project statements suitable to the final year design studio;
• gained experience in managing and working on a large-scale design project with an external advisor;
• gained experience in interdisciplinary collaboration involving marketing, production, and design disciplines;
• finalised a project statement in accordance with researched user needs and project-relevant constraints;
• employed creativity exercises (e.g. scenario building, brain storming, matrices, etc.) to develop new design concepts;
• provided regular feedback to course instructors on the communications held with his/her external advisor;
• prepared a comprehensive project development portfolio that demonstrates exploration of existing design solutions, potential user groups, design strategies, design criteria, related production technologies, and iterated design solutions;
• provided evidence of progress in his/her design process through sketches, mock-ups and digital models during regular studio critiques and juries/presentations;
• presented a final design proposal (comprising a concept, usage scenarios, product/UI features and technical details) in a professional manner using appropriate media (e.g. digital models, visualizations, technical drawings, physical appearance or working model, working UI, prototype, etc.), to a standard suitable for public exhibition.

Program Outcomes Matrix

0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution