MDes Basecamp
Every fall, MDES Basecamp convenes students and faculty for intensive training and team-building exercises, solving design challenges together.
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Yijia Sun, MDes ’19, Aastha Singh, MDes ’19, McKayla Blanch, MDes ’19, Design Innovation
Agnee: Design for Developing Countries: Cooking up a Recipe for Clean Energy Adoption in Rural India, Solution, 2018
Divya Mangadu, MDes ’20, Radhika Dhepe, MDes ’20, Stephanie Quinones-Millet, MDes ’20, Design Innovation
Nalo: Together We Support Recovery, Solution, 2018
David Meyers, MDes ’18, Raquel Meneses, MDes ’18, Chuyang Chen, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
The Gotel Project, Solution, 2017
Arthur Grau, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
Reflection 621, Solution, 2016
Joe Blair, MDes ’18, Arthur Grau, MDes ’18, Chad DeSisto, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
More Human, Solution, 2017
Lars Fischer, Professor, Design Innovation
Piper Aircraft, Model, 2016
Explore Design Innovation events, exhibitions, and other happenings on campus and in the community.
As a Design Innovation student, you’re invited to participate in a range of events, both here on the MassArt campus and throughout Greater Boston. Grow your design knowledge and expand your network by attending talks, exhibitions, and career development opportunities alongside peers, faculty, and MassArt alumni.
As a part of the MDES program, students traveled to New Hampshire for MDes Bootcamp in the Fall of 2022. Photo: Lars Fischer
Photo: James Read
Mdes Basecamp & Activities
Every fall, MDES Basecamp convenes students and faculty for intensive training and team-building exercises, solving design challenges together. During the retreat, students work in leadership and supporting roles on developing and proposing solutions to a variety of challenges. Faculty introduce a set of specific problems for the group to address during Basecamp, and the community engages with the issues from the perspective of potential clients, while also considering more global and theoretical lenses. The themes explored at Basecamp are then carried throughout the year, as students continue to collaborate and strategize together during a range of group projects.
Design Innovation Summit
Whether you’re a designer, student, executive, or simply curious about the endless possibilities when design meets nature, this event is for you. MassArt hosts a Design Innovation Summit, where we explore the role of design and creativity to preserve and protect the natural world. The Design Innovation Summit is a day filled with inspiring talks, workshops, and networking opportunities that bring together communities from industry, non-profit, academy, and policy.
The MDes program prepares graduates to lead organizational and social transformation at corporations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and entrepreneurial ventures.
As a student in the Design Innovation program, you will immerse yourself in coursework that blends design and business thinking as you prepare to join the next generation of innovators.
Classes consist of approximately 60% design and 40% business content, bringing quantitative business metrics to the designer’s qualitative problem-solving process. This holistic, human-centric program emphasizes four key skill areas: empathy, analysis, contextual understanding, and communication.
Through interdisciplinary work, you will learn how to:
- identify and define a problem
- develop actionable solutions
- make strategic business decisions
- implement effective leadership skills for mobilizing and motivating teams
Design Innovation MDes Thesis’s published between 2018-2022. Image courtesy of Design Innovation faculty.
In addition to learning from core MassArt faculty, Design Innovation students take courses with talented and visionary professionals serving as visiting lecturers. Classes are co-taught by design and business professors in a fully integrated, collaborative teaching model.
Graduates of the Design Innovation program enter the workforce as service designers, experience designers, design strategists, and innovation leaders. These hybrid design and business professionals are positioned to influence growing industry areas both nationally and internationally, offering a distinctly different kind of leadership to the marketplace.
Yijia Sun, MDes ’19, Aastha Singh, MDes ’19, McKayla Blanch, MDes ’19, Design Innovation
Agnee: Design for Developing Countries: Cooking up a Recipe for Clean Energy Adoption in Rural India, Solution, 2018
Divya Mangadu, MDes ’20, Radhika Dhepe, MDes ’20, Stephanie Quinones-Millet, MDes ’20, Design Innovation
Nalo: Together We Support Recovery, Solution, 2018
David Meyers, MDes ’18, Raquel Meneses, MDes ’18, Chuyang Chen, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
The Gotel Project, Solution, 2017
MDes Learning Outcomes
Students who complete the Design Innovation MDes program are expected to be able to demonstrate the following learning outcomes.
- Design and develop experience design, service design and cross-disciplinary design projects
- Develop empathy and understanding relating to client/constituency needs and to the creation of solutions that resonate with them
- Ability to systematically deconstruct and analyze problems, synthesize findings, and come to creative solutions applicable to business and design
- Understand the role of design in culture and commerce
- Develop the contextual language of business and design, and gain business skills relative to the creative economy
- Gain communication skills relative to leadership, business, and multiple audiences
- Develop awareness and understanding of the diverse cultural, historical, and experiential issues expressed and inherent in one’s design practice and in the discipline of design
- Develop the aesthetic sensitivity, technical competence, awareness and analytical thought necessary to design solutions for social, economic, environmental and global challenges
- Team leadership and understanding of how to motivate interdisciplinary teams, and collaboration skills
- Ability to verbally and visually present work in a professional manner
- Hands-on graphic visualization, technical drawing, model making and prototype development
Ready To Take the Next Step?
Prepare to lead organizational and social transformation at corporations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and entrepreneurial ventures.
The Design Innovation program at MassArt (MDES) is a STEM certified, full-time, two-year (60 credit hours) graduate program that prepares the next generation of innovators to lead organizational and social transformation across organizations. Blending design and business thinking, MDES graduates are uniquely positioned to influence growing industry areas and go on to work as service designers, experience designers, design strategists, and innovation leaders.
Yijia Sun, MDes ’19, Aastha Singh, MDes ’19, McKayla Blanch, MDes ’19, Design Innovation
Agnee: Design for Developing Countries: Cooking up a Recipe for Clean Energy Adoption in Rural India, Solution, 2018
Divya Mangadu, MDes ’20, Radhika Dhepe, MDes ’20, Stephanie Quinones-Millet, MDes ’20, Design Innovation
Nalo: Together We Support Recovery, Solution, 2018
David Meyers, MDes ’18, Raquel Meneses, MDes ’18, Chuyang Chen, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
The Gotel Project, Solution, 2017
Arthur Grau, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
Reflection 621, Solution, 2016
Joe Blair, MDes ’18, Arthur Grau, MDes ’18, Chad DeSisto, MDes ’18, Design Innovation
More Human, Solution, 2017
Lars Fischer, Professor, Design Innovation
Piper Aircraft, Model, 2016
18 unique undergraduate programs. 10 graduate degree programs. A world of opportunity.
Yijia Sun, MDes '19, Aastha Singh, MDes '19, McKayla Blanch, MDes '19, Design Innovation
Agnee: Design for Developing Countries: Cooking up a Recipe for Clean Energy Adoption in Rural India, Solution, 2018
Divya Mangadu, MDes '20, Radhika Dhepe, MDes '20, Stephanie Quinones-Millet, MDes '20, Design Innovation
Nalo: Together We Support Recovery, Solution, 2018
David Meyers, MDes '18, Raquel Meneses, MDes '18, Chuyang Chen, MDes '18, Design Innovation
The Gotel Project, Solution, 2017
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