Brunel students to give design verdict on BA

British Airways is promising to consider design management recommendations from an in-depth study of the airline’s design by students at Brunel University.

Five post-graduate design students from Brunel are to submit a report to BA which “may well be used to formulate future design management strategy”, says BA’s creative service head Chris Holt.

The students, from industrial design, architectural and engineering backgrounds, are on Brunel’s Design Strategy and Innovation course. Their feedback study started this month and will be finished by March.

It is a “new type” of investigative audit looking at BA’s management of design, and is the brainchild of course director Naomi Gornick and Holt.

“The students will tell us what we should be doing less or more of,” comments Holt. “it’s useful to have a fresh perspective. And it’s good experience for future employment, it enables them to skip the drawing board stage and practice being design managers.”

According to Gornick, the students will be studying brand-management, focusing on First Class, Club World and World Traveller. “These are crucial to BA’s design strategy,” she says.

“They will also be looking at product development, and in- flight entertainment. We’re letting them have a free hand, make discoveries on their own and present them to Brunel and BA.”

BA is not committing itself, but the students may be considered for future design management positions with the airline.