SVA Product Design Master’s Program in NYC

Graduate Product Design at SVA is the most comprehensive product design program imaginable.

Designers don’t design things. They design consequences.

Complex challenges require many design disciplines—not just one. Located in New York City, the SVA Products of Design master’s program is STEM-Certified and provides the tools and methodologies from all the key design fields. We accept students with a bachelor’s degree, including those who did not previously study design.

We empower SVA MFA design graduates with the leadership abilities they need to solve global problems and create lasting social change.

  • When you choose Product Design at SVA, you learn product design and more. We teach the most vital disciplines of design- from physical product design to digital product design, social impact design, and design management. In addition, students learn the language of business, entrepreneurship, leadership, sustainability, branding, supply chain, and labor practices while earning their master’s degree in design.

    View the curriculum

  • Here’s why: First, one of the reasons that education can fail is that it spends more time measuring people than mentoring them. Second, we want maximum risk from our students, and a no-grades policy lets them spread their wings without fear. Third, and above all, we want to build trust between students and faculty, nuturing a relationship that is collegial and professional.

    Read alumni reflections

  • Our campus location serves as an unparalleled learning lab, and our studio space features reconfigurable classrooms, state-of—the-art making labs, a full-on central kitchen, and more. We also teach in professional studios around New York City—from frog Design to Johnson & Johnson—and students attend studio space workshops and meet with the leadership at ground-breaking organizations from Google Creative Lab, Lyft, Kickstarter, Etsy, and the New York Times.

    See a day in the life!

  • Our MFA design program faculty list reads like a who’s who of Design Industry champions. From Community Design leader to Sloan Leo, to Suma Reddy, to Antenna Design's Sigi Moeslinger & Masamichi Udagawa, our faculty are experts in their field and are deeply involved in local and international design worlds. They bring both their hands-on methodologies, as well as their unique perspectives on the future of design into the curriculum… and into their classrooms.

    Meet the faculty

  • Alongside scholarship, research, and methods, we are devoted to the prototype— whether it’s a system, a user journey map, a mobile app, or a working, physical model. Every year, we work with the Museum of Modern Art to design products for manufacture and inclusion in their wholesale and retail channels. Our students learn to create compelling, convincing prototypes, in addition to the fundamentals of manufacturing and distribution.

    Learn more about our MoMA Partnership

  • Evidenced by the thesis topics, course work, and partnered projects, the beating heart of the program centers on social impact, design for justice, systems change, and the drive towards a more fair and equitable world. If you want to be a positive force, here’s where you’ll get fortified. We place moral integrity, empathy, and generosity over all other design skills as part of our master design program.

    Check out our thesis projects

Applications Open!

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Applications Open! 〰️

Special Events:

May 7th

SVA Theatre
New York City

We invite you to attend the Masters Thesis Presentations of the 2024 graduating class of the MFA in Products of Design program, live at the SVA Theatre on Tuesday, May 7th from 1:00pm - 7:00pm (EDT, GMT-4). Sixteen graduating Masters students will each present their year-long thesis work, comprised of research, artifacts, services, experiences, and platforms. We welcome guests from all facets of design and innovation, including designers, entrepreneurs, students, teachers, advocates, talent-scouts, journalists and cultural critics.

Where do our students get hired?

Graduates of our SVA MFA design program go on to work in top design organizations both in New York City and around the world. Just some of the places where our students are now working include Apple, Johnson & Johnson, IDEO, IDEO.org, Frog Design, Google, Microsoft, IBM, R/GA, Lyft, Vice Media, MoMA, JP Morgan, Pinterest, Method, Ziba, Bark & Co., SYPartners, 2X4, Pentagram, Local Projects, Deloitte, Arup, 18F, Code & Theory, American Express, Mythbusters, Tiffany, Argodesign, Madwell, and Landor.

Top Design Organization Logos Where Students Get Hiried

What our alumni have said about our program

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