Since 2015 the MEng4 class of Product Design Engineering have engaged in the ‘Retail therapy’ project as their main Semester 1 project. The aim of the project each year has been to design and make a batch of giftware products to be sold through art/design retail shops.

 

The first 3 years of the project took place in collaboration with the GSA shop. The Mackintosh fires closed the GSA shop resulting in the 2018 project being hosted by a GSA pop-up in Princes Square, Glasgow. In 2019, with no GSA retail operation, a new partner was sought, with the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) shop on Sauchiehall street being utilised for Retail Therapy 5.
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Retail Therapy 6, 7 and 8 coincided with Covid and its effects. During this time, links were established with high tech companies Hewlett Packard, Autodesk and Formlabs to provide access to cutting edge 3D printing and state of the art design software. Access to these technologies allowed the students to continue to design and make their products spanning the full spectrum from the hand-crafted to the digitally printed and offered for sale through www.pdecollection.com.

 

This tenth PDE Collection consists of products by 19 students each of whom is selling their products through personal ‘Big Cartel’ shops linked to www.pdecollection.com. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the project, we are also planning a Kickstarter campaign for January ’25, featuring new products from the class of ’24 and representatives from each of the previous nine years of the project.