Proposed number of students 2012/13: 17

Students will be selected for the Information Experience Design programme from a range of associated disciplines, of which the main areas will be Graphic Design, Information Design, Multimedia Design, Computing and Moving Image.

Enrolled students will be introduced to the philosophy and ethos of the programme through a series of seminars and presentations by staff and visiting speakers. Initial curricular project work is designed to enable students to benefit from the wide range of approaches and backgrounds represented within a multidisciplinary programme and School, in a central London location.

The programme will address the need for designers to understand the contribution of early strategic design thinking when preparing information to be experienced by a specific audience. How information is organised, connected, articulated and experienced using print and digital/interactive means is the necessary outcome of information transformation linked to an identified audience need. Building on the visual literacy and the intellectual research base of the RCA, this programme will have a cultural and independent creative outlook, supporting practice that is not restricted by industry norms or expectations.

Following the first group project assignment, students are required to choose from a series of School-wide project options – electives – which cover a range of issues and approaches, managed and critiqued by specialist tutors. Each elective project will have been set for quite specific reasons – these will be clearly stated in the briefing documents accompanying the project presentations. This first round of electives will occupy the whole of the first term, culminating in a series of crits and discussions early in the second term.

Following this, students will be asked to choose from another series of elective projects, to continue their elective work from the first term or to take the option of proposing a project of their own in consultation with their personal tutor. One of the primary functions of these elective projects is to enable students who wish to focus on a comparatively narrow area of communications to do so – alternatively they may choose to experience what is for them an entirely new area of study.

During the second year, students will continue to work on individually authored projects, which may include developing ideas from their first year. Students can also choose to make use of the competitions and commissions we attract from industry – many of which have an interdisciplinary focus. Indeed, its expected that students in IED will create opportunities to work in collaboration with students from other areas of the College. These projects in some form will provide the basis of the work-in-progress exhibition held towards the end of the autumn term.

The second-year curriculum offers a series of second-year interdisciplinary tutorial groups – for participating students this will become a key part of their second-year critical development. Students – with the support of members of staff – will also be expected to design, curate, publicise and host a series of discussions and debates led by invited guests that in some way address issues relating to contemporary culture and their future professional practice.