Have more impact. Design with ease.

The Design Character course by Dr Melis Senova, teaches you how to communicate with confidence and design and lead with ethical power for lasting impact.

What you do creates the world. Who you are shapes how you do it.

Apply now →

Design that is human-centred includes not only what you bring to the table, but ‘who’ you bring to the table as well—character. This [course] helps people to become reflective and proactive in determining who shows up. — Harold Nelson, PhD

Be more powerful, more impactful and have a better time being you.

Advocating for change can be exhausting. Especially if the approach you’re taking is foreign.

You can feel like you are speaking into a void, and begin to question the value that you bring.

A strong foundation will prevent this cycle from continuing. This is what character work delivers.

The world meets you through your character.

Design character describes the parts of you that can be worked on to improve:

How people perceive you.
The impact of your work.
The experience of being you while doing your work.

The hardest path to a successful career is pretending to be someone you’re not.

This course will uncover who you truly are and how that translates to what you do. This makes being you at work a whole lot easier.

Craft and character go hand in hand.

What you will learn

Although essential, Design Character is not regularly taught in design education. These meta-skills are the ones you lean on the most, they are operating in the background whether you know it or not, and they directly affect your performance in your job.

Gain clarity

Increase the resilience and effectiveness of your personal practice and that of your team.

Build confidence

Find your voice, advocate with ease and say goodbye to feeling small and over powered.

Design yourself

Continue to develop who you are and how you meet the world to create the change you want to see.

What you get

Graduates of the Design Character course will receive the following:

One

A Design Character micro-credential

A certified micro-credential, that you can share on your LinkedIn profile.

Two

Elective credits for Masters of Design Futures students

This course is recognised by RMIT as an eligible elective for the RMIT Master of Design Futures program.

Three

You unique design character blueprint

You will develop and complete your own design character blueprint and accompanying methodology to reuse on yourself and your teams.

Four

Access to curated resources

You will ongoing access to articles and action experiments designed specifically to integrate design character into practice.

Five

Access to This Human Community

The course runs in a private space within This Human Community where you’ll get to learn together with other like-minded designers. Apart from video session, this is the only place you need to be during the course.

Six

A copy of This Human

You will receive a fresh new copy of this human as a reference.

How it works

The Design Character course is hosted completely in This Human Community. You will have access to a private community and learning space. All the course content and interactions with Melis and your group will be within this platform.

Facilitated by Dr Senova

Personally designed and facilitated by Melis, based on more than 20 years experience working with designers, and as one.

Individual learning

Weekly reading and reflection tasks that expand your perspective and build your knowledge, all aimed to foster confidence in how you communicate.

Group learning

Weekly live group video sessions with Melis as the facilitator, to dive deeper into the content, answer any questions and provide real time support.

Course project

Progressively build and apply your design character blueprint, a map of who you are and how you practice, that stay with you forever.

Peer Support

Build meaningful relationships with other like-minded people who are moving through the same journey as you, at the same time as you.

It was disruptive in a really great way, a really positive way. Due to the ability to stop and really self-reflect. Which is pretty rare these days. Professionally I started to see my interactions in a more layered and more nuanced way… it helped me communicate more effectively, and be more purposeful in my contributions. Ultimately I made a very good choice, I can always learn practical things but insights I’ve gained about myself have accelerated my development as a designer.

Darren McKenzie Head of Capability and Careers, RMIT. RMIT Masters of Design Futures Graduate

Application process

New dates coming soon!

Anyone who is involved in improving the experience of people, involved in design, change or innovation, or working on developing their own leadership and increasing their impact are invited to apply.

This is how you do it:

Click apply now to fill out the form and reserve your spot
Follow this link to join the this human community.
Click on Courses and select and pay for the next available course.

Investment

$1,950 AUD

Apply now to express your interest!

1.5 hr/week zoom session with Melis at 8:30 am AEDT every Thursday for 8 weeks.
For people in European timezones please let me know in your application!