AAU
DESIGN
SCHOOL

Design theory, approach and methods

DESIGNERLY LOOPS (Danish)

Essential design thinking and doing for design students

Designerly loops is an introduction to the design process, it outlines one version of a process that introduces most of the basic steps and methods. Designerly loops videos are instruction videos supporting the most significant steps outlined in the book “Designerly Loops”.

At AAU design school, Designerly Loops is used at the 2nd semester on Architecture and Design Bachelor programme for Industrial Design.

DESIGNERS MARKET (Danish)

Real skin in the game: design entrepreneurship

Designers market is an intense challenge for design students: design, define, make and sell 20 units of a product in 10 days. It sets an entrepreneurial challenge for designers, where you put real skin in the game and go through the whole process from initial idea to marketing and selling a real product. The videos are divided into the four phases; define, design, make and sell.

THE PITCH PROJECT

Pitching concepts for companies – target practice for design students.

The pitch project video shows how designers and design students can bring value to a company through three rounds of pitching concept proposals. The students aim to develop new concepts that embodies the DNA of the company, improving precision for each round. The company reacts to the pitches and continuously improve precision in feedback and direction.

The pitch project is part of the curriculum on the 1st semester on the Master in Industrial Design, where students work with a case company with the explicit objective to propose a concept that the company would like to buy and implement.

SOLIDWORKS BEGINNER

Get started with parametric 3D modeleling

In this course Andreas teaches you to use Solidworks, and gives a beginner course on sketches, part, assemblies and rendering. 

Using 3D modelling programs can have a steep learning curve, so Andreas breaks down the most common troubleshooting for a beginner.

STRATEGIC DESIGN COURSE

Strategic Design  – how companies used strategic positioning

In the strategic design course Associate professor Linda Nhu Laursen and Louise Møller Haase explaining how various companies used strategic positioning to approach market opportunity. 

DESIGN THINKING COURSE

Design is a process – design thinking is a tool.

As many academics and professionals within the design field, our relationship to Design Thinking have evolved through the years. In this course, we will take you through the development of the Design Thinking concept with our reflections along the way. We hope this will help you deepen your understanding of the aspirations, the theoretical underpinnings as well as the recent critique of the design thinking concept. We believe it is important for you, that have an interest in the concept, understand why, how and which path had lead the Design Thinking concept, to the somewhat disputed position, where it is today.

ACADEMIC PAPER COURSE

Doing the research is one thing – writing about it is a whole other thing.

Associate professors Linda Nhu Laursen and Louise Møller Haase discuss their individual relationship with the writing process and how they’ve learned to master it.

DIRECTION MODULE

How do we make sense of the problem and solution in the process of design?

Together with Søren Banke (MSc. Industrial Design) and Lars Bjerregaard (MSc. Industrial Design) we discuss how projects often from the outside looks very finalized and orderly, but that the process behind it is a whole other story.