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RESEARCH & CONSULTANCY

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The Community will focus on Innovative technology for use in varied design disciplines including digital heritage reconstruction and interpretation, education, health, sport and instructional design. The emphasis will generally focus on human-centred design and innovation processes.  The Centre will further develop areas of RKE expertise such as ideation, empathic design, user-experience and user-interface design, collaborative design processes, rapid prototyping, concept visualisation, business modelling and simulation, and transformative consumer research. 

The Community will also encompass areas such as trend forecasting, data visualisation, interpretation and management decision-making.  The connection between enterprise and innovation will be through design thinking, an inter-disciplinary, deeply collaborative approach bringing design expertise to early-stage opportunity identification, concept generation and concept testing.  This involves users/consumers, designers and sponsors such as business organisations, public sector, voluntary sector and social enterprises working together to achieve innovation.  The innovation could be in terms of new products and services, business models, business processes, digital media, social interventions, or creative approaches to learning, for example. The Community will undertake research into curriculum design and innovative teaching modes, supporting the knowledge exchange and consultancy functions.

Degree Programmes

The Community will engage with a wide variety of teaching programmes, both under and post-grad, but will focus the engagement in key development areas:

Existing Offer

  • MA in Digital Media Practice – Interaction Design, Visualisation, Design Thinking, Motion Graphics, and Advertising, Marketing and Branding Design.
  • MSc in Marketing Innovation
  • Executive MBA programme
  • Consultancy based dissertations (UG)
  • Strategic Innovation Management (UG)
  • Creativity & Enterprise (UG)
  • Digital Media Design and Digital Media Development  (UG)
  • 3D Visualisation and 3D Environments (Game & Heritage) (UG)
  • Computer Aided Design (UG)

Future Development

  • BSc in 3D Design and Technology – design thinking and 3D printing technologies combined with business modelling and strategic innovative thinking
  • BA Digital Illustration – with 4 pathways including Fashion Illustration
  • BSc Game Design & Development
  • BA Interior Design / Architectural Design
  • Embedding product design and digital media content into the BA (Hons) Marketing and BA (Hons) Fashion: Media and Marketing.
  • MSc Digital Media Practice TBC (to include AR/VR/Game World development with Unity /Unreal)
  • MA Interpretation Design, Museums & Heritage TBC

Research Focus & PhD Areas

CEDI retains a specific ‘Creative Digital’ sector focus – Heritage, digital design, digital media, web, game & application development, digital innovation. This, in part, stems from 25 years research and practice in Digital Heritage Interpretation Design by Debs Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media. Debs’ PhD study is entitled ‘Curator~Designer~Visitor Interaction in Cultural Heritage Interpretation Design’ which reflects on her design practice and collaboration in researching and creating a reconstruction of Beaulieu Abbey and subsequent kiosk application. 

The Cloisters - Hyde Abbey

Dr John Richardson, Head of Department for Marketing (Event Management, Fashion and Marketing Programmes) and Senior Lecturer in Innovation Management and an experienced Innovation Advisor/Consultant with a passion for Knowledge Transfer between universities and business. He has an MBA (Distinction) from Southampton University and a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics.

His background is in Computer-aided Mechanical Engineering. A position as a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Southampton led to a move into academia and to Winchester. His expertise covers: Business Innovation, Product Development, Creativity and Innovation Strategy. John’s PhD led to 4 journal and 4 conference papers in Computational Fluid Dynamics.

Dr Debs Wilson is the Programme Leader for BSc CAD and Senior Lecturer for the CAD and Digital Media Design programmes.  Debs has been instrumental in growing the Digital Media (Undergraduate and Postgraduate) and CAD programmes over the past five years and ensuring that the programmes respond well to the requirements and expectations set by industry, thus ensuring that our Digital Media and CAD students gain the best and most relevant experience to enter the digital design industry.  She has also set up an Industry Advisory Panel to gain advice and suggestions from a selection of leading designers and business leaders including representatives from IBM, The Financial Times and other leading designers who have a wealth of experience to offer.  It is through these meetings held three times a year that we are able to shape the courses we offer to make them as relevant as possible in this ever-changing world of digital design.

Her expertise covers: Heritage Interpretation Design, 3D and Architectural Visualisation, Animation, CAD, Spatial Design, Illustration, Interactive media, Interface design, Information design, User centred design, Interpretation design, Collaborative Project Based Learning and Design Thinking.

Paul Wilson is the Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Design. Paul previously worked at IBM Global Services as a web/mulitmedia designer, working for large corporate clients including Vauxhall Motors, Lloyds TSB bank and Prudential Assurance before moving to work with Debs Wilson in their training and design company (2000) Clear Thinking UK Ltd. Paul has over five years’ experience in teaching multimedia, web and design software (Adobe) for his company and for other training providers.  In 2006 Paul joined Garmin as a web designer and was involved with both web and video production projects, promoting Garmin sat nav products online and for exhibitions.

Paul plans to start his PhD studies in the area of Virtual Reality and Instructional Design, focusing on the classic car repair market and how repairing classics can be adapted to the digital age. His areas of expertise are: Web design, Typography, User Experience (UX) design, Illustration, Interactive media, Interface design, Information design, User centred design, Interpretation design and Graphic design.

Kerry Steele-Jones is the Programme Leader and Lecturer in Digital Media Practice and leads on AR/VR/XR. Kerry is currently studying a PhD in VR  and XR for engaging applications within educational environments.

Sam Barker is the Programme Leader and Lecturer in Computer Games Design & Development,  and Digital Media Development areas such as Immersive Technologies.

Paula Richardson is CEDI’s Project Manager.