Key Areas
The following descriptions of key areas are useful for better understanding some of the disciplinary strengths within our department. Students work primarily with one or two faculty members. The current program requirements and course descriptions can be found in the Course Catalog.
Exhibition Design
The MFA in Design prepares students with an emphasis in Exhibition Design for research, teaching and professional leadership opportunities in a highly interdisciplinary field that shapes museum, theme park, trade show, exposition, retail, public and civic spaces. An expanding global economy demands a need for exhibition design research that explores innovative approaches to artifact display, interpretive and narrative environments, signage and wayfinding, and engaging experiences for a broad range of audiences that are fully immersive, interactive and participatory. Visit Storied Spaces for more information about the exhibition design concentration in the UC Davis Department of Design.
Fashion Design
The MFA degree in Design with an emphasis on Fashion includes research and creative activities related to the development of clothing for fashion and functional use as well as historical, socio-psychological, and cultural contexts. Current research areas in Fashion focus on sustainability, smart clothing and wearable technology development, functional clothing and accessory design for activity and environment-based challenges, aesthetics, trend research and forecasting and studies of fashion in relation to cultures and societies. Faculty advisers in this area include Gozde Goncu-Berk, Susan T. Avila, Susan B. Kaiser and Adele Zhang.
History and Theory of Design
Study focusing on design history and theory at the graduate level is open to MA students in the Art History program, Ph.D. students in Cultural Studies, and other graduate students including Design MFA students interested in taking seminars in the history of architecture and design. Our faculty specialize in topics from the nineteenth century to the present, and explore architecture and design in its social, political and ideological contexts. Undergraduate design history courses cover a broad swathe of global history of design, including different design disciplines. We are also part of a UC-wide consortium of architecture and design historians exploring the history of California design.
Interactive Design
The MFA in Interactive Design prepares students with an emphasis in Interaction Design as a multidisciplinary creative practice that integrates digital and physical media with academic research, or experimental and practical approaches. The MFA at UC Davis encourages interdisciplinary approaches including research in the arts and humanities; computer science and data science; electrical and mechanical engineering; and social sciences, among other disciplines. It considers technology both as a medium that expands creative possibilities for interaction and as a phenomenon that invites critical discourse about the role of technological change in culture. Placing technology in the context of society with a strong conceptual approach to research and creative strategies, students are encouraged to explore diverse subject matters to create interactive objects and spaces, installations, and social interventions. In addition to required graduate core courses in Design, students interested in this area can pursue courses (including independent and group studies) in human-computer interaction (HCI), wearable technologies, interactive objects, data representation, interface design, large-scale installations, network-based design, machine learning, public art, user experience, and design for social change in the realm of social and political activism and interventions. Additionally, students are encouraged to take courses outside the department in Cinema and Digital Media, Computer Science, Engineering, Psychology, and Science and Technology, and participate in industry internships.
Interior Architecture
The MFA in Design prepares students with an emphasis in Interior Architecture to perform work that expands the scope and nature of design practice and theory. Ideal candidates are interested in bridging interior architecture with other fields only available at a top tier research university, such as landscape architecture or the sciences. The main objective of the program is preparing students to conduct interdisciplinary research, reflecting faculty conviction that this mode of inquiry will be essential for the next generation of leaders in design. While potential research topics are limitless, a few areas of focus include affordable housing, universal design, application of technology to interior use (wayfinding, information access, healthy environments, energy use), and the diverse expressions of interior architecture found in world cultures.
Lighting Design
The MFA in Design prepares students with an emphasis in Lighting Design for leadership careers in lighting design, research and teaching. Students will develop a graduate level foundation of knowledge, skills and critical thinking capabilities. Students will be prepared to enter into leadership opportunities and careers in architectural lighting design, and/or teaching with academia or relevant non profit agencies. With the increasing interest in sustainability and low carbon architectural design there has been a steady increase and demand for designers knowledgeable in lighting for leadership opportunities.
Product Design
The MFA in Design prepares students with an emphasis in Product Design include courses; labs and opportunities for entrepreneurship, research and industry collaborations. Using ecological and human-centered design principles, we are dedicated to solving some of the world’s largest environmental and social problems. We offer courses in sustainable design, human-centered design, industrial design, furniture design, wearable technology, lighting design, materials and methods, digital design and prototyping. Our prototyping lab has 3D printers, laser cutters, and an electronics bench — the tools you need to bring a concept to life. Our staffed woodshop is fully equipped to build out ideas at the human-scale and beyond.
Textiles
Foregrounding textiles during the MFA program at UC Davis prepares students for a wide variety of careers including academia, industry, non government organizations (NGOs), and other entrepreneurial ventures. Textiles are intrinsically a part of everyone’s material culture; as the textile field often overlaps with fashion, interior architecture, lighting/daylighting, industrial design, and/or interactive design, students are encouraged to seek cross disciplinary collaborations. The MFA program provides students the opportunity for research and practice-based textile design work with a focus on exploration, creativity, and problem solving.
Visual Communication
Visual communication design focuses on the relationship between form, content, and context. Critical making and critical thinking skills are emphasized in the research and creation of artifacts, environments, interactions, and experiences in print, screen, time-based, and three-dimensional media. Interdisciplinary studies in psychology, anthropology, cognition, history of media, rhetoric, computer science, intercultural communication, and other areas can be undertaken to inform the design research and development process.
