Sustainable Design Welcome Guide

Preparing for your course

We're delighted to have you join us at Arts University Bournemouth, and hope that your time here will be rewarding, challenging, creative and enjoyable.

Welcome to BA (Hons) Sustainable Design

This welcome pack is designed to give you an idea of what to expect during the first weeks of your course. Please take the time to read it carefully and take particular note of the pre-course preparation. The team and I hope that you'll enjoy a happy and productive time with us and look forward to meeting you in October.

A message from your Course Leader

Welcome to the next stage of your journey to change the world for the better as a creative designer. As a creative designer you’ll always be looking out for issues that interest you, sketching ideas, and proposing solutions… We will be starting by doing just this.

We will begin the course with a thorough introduction to studying at Arts University Bournemouth, and consider the ‘Past, Present and Future’ of design practice and issues of sustainability.

We value your imagination and determination, but also your positive thinking and your knowledge of the worlds issues. We are all close to issues that can be addressed, maybe in small ways, maybe in revolutionary ways, with design thinking. We encourage you to be inquisitive, experimental and hard-working in return the course will reward your commitment with an extraordinary range of opportunities and a place in a unique creative community.

We look forward to meeting you…

– Will Strange, Course Leader

Before you join us

Now, more than ever, designers and creatives are being called upon to consider issues of social, economic and environmental sustainability. Only by working together, sharing ideas, and focusing on common goals can we make the most of our creativity and address these issues.

One of the ways that we can come together in this aim is to work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). See the Reading List for information about the SDGs.

As preparation for joining us here in Bournemouth, we have a creative challenge for you:

We want you to produce a collage-style poster that highlights one of the SDGs and tells something about why it's important to you. Choose any of the SDGs that interest you (except Number 17 – Partnerships for the goals – we'll be using this one as an example…)

The poster should be A3 portrait format, but can be designed however you like. It should communicate clearly, but also express your own ideas. It could be compiled digitally (we can print it for you), or it could be a collage of cut-out images and hand rendered text. The "plastic bags" image that represents us on the University's website is a very simple example; a more complex collage could be more relevant to your own ideas.

Use the poster to illustrate how you think the world should change to incorporate or enable one of the SDGs. This could be a utopian vision of the world changed for the better, or an illustration of a problem and how it might be addressed.

We want to see what you are interested in changing about the world. Show examples of how your creative design can be used to highlight a cause. We want to see what inspires you and your design.

You could find examples from anywhere, but we're particularly interested in what you see around you, examples you can see and experience.

These posters will be a way to introduce ourselves when we come together, and complete an introductory project that'll introduce our exciting new course to the rest of AUB, and the world!

If you have any questions about this challenge, please contact us at wstrange@aub.ac.uk.

How to submit your summer project

Simply bring your poster with you when you join us on campus for the first time, or email it to wstrange@aub.ac.uk.

Bell, A. (2020) Can we save the planet: A primer for the 21^st century. Thames & Hudson.
Kelly, D. & Kelly, T. (2015) Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential within Us All. Harper Collins.
United Nations (no date) The 17 Goals. [online] Available from: https://sdgs.un.org/goals. Accessed on: 11 April 2024
United Nations Publications. (2017) The Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations Publications.