Design Without: a Neville Brody masterclass

Royal College of Art

A professional short course designed to help experienced practitioners challenge creative assumptions, take meaningful risks, and break free from habitual ways of working through a series of rapid, intensive briefs.

In today's fast-paced, delivery-focused environment, we often lose the permission to experiment, play, and explore without a defined objective. As professional practitioners, our vocational skills become strengths, but they can also become invisible safety nets. We programme ourselves to find functional solutions and make risk-free decisions, often losing touch with lateral thinking and true creative possibility.

This course is a dedicated space to challenge those built-in responses. It is an antidote to the demand for instant, perfect output, offering a framework to rediscover the value of thoughtful consideration, ambiguity, and play. It is a safe space to take creative risks, uncover your "go-to" props, and think differently about your practice.

Over three intensive days, you will engage in a rapid brief-and-response process designed to push you outside your comfort zone. This isn't about producing a perfect outcome it's about embracing the process of response itself as a gateway to new learning, change, and creative revitalisation.

Because of the themes and the desirable outcomes of the masterclass, we will not be disclosing any specific topics and briefs for this course. Nor will a timetable be released ahead of the start date. This is to allow you to come onto campus and be able to immerse yourself with no pre-existing notions. The one thing we ask is that you are prepared to be unprepared.