Product Design course at Bangor University pivots during current COVID-19 lockdown

Lockdown Design Lecture Series with Jude Pullen

The current COVID-19 lockdown has resulted in the end of face to face teaching within Universities. Design courses have canceled events such as Design Degree Shows, and Bangor University has also cancelled the highly rated annual Bangor Design Conference for students on the BSc Product Design and MSc Design & Innovation degrees, which brings industry experts and students together. This meant that students were missing out on a key element of the student and learning experience.

A key question the product design course asked was ‘How might we work within the current constraints to still engage with industry experts and provide a valuable learning experience for our design students and continue to reach out to our wider community’.

The Lockdown Design Lecture Series is their response to answer this need. 
Working in collaboration with Jude Pullen (a Technologist and Prototyping Expert with a proven industrial record through his work at Dyson, Sugru and LEGO),  a dedicated series of lectures have been carefully created and curated to provide valuable learning experiences not only for the students of Product Design at Bangor University but to all students of design. Jude has spoken three times at the Bangor Design conference and is also known for his appearances on BBC 2’s Big Life Fix with Simon Reeve and Channel 4’s Great British Inventions with Sir David Jason.

The ‘Lockdown Design Lecture Series’ will be more than just another series of online courses; they will be interactive and uses social platforms’ new features like pre-recorded You Tube videos and include live chat between Jude and the students.

Some of the lectures will also approach the current issue facing many design graduates of finding work, working, and collaborating remotely during the current situation. https://www.youtube.com/user/JudePullen https://www.bangor.ac.uk/education-and-human-development/design/lockdown-design-lecture.php.en 

Chloe Shaw 2nd year product design student at Bangor University said in an Instagram post:“Watching Jude Pullen’s introduction to the lockdown lecture series ahead of the next few weeks! This is a great way to keep a sense of normality as a designer, with Jude having great previous experiences and a lot to share with us! I am very thankful to @productdesignbangor for helping us through this difficult time with the online lectures, team video calls as a class and setting up this with Jude due to our design conference being cancelled!”

Publication date: 29 April 2020