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.
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:
A Design Character micro-credential
A certified micro-credential, that you can share on your LinkedIn profile.
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.
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.
Access to curated resources
You will ongoing access to articles and action experiments designed specifically to integrate design character into practice.
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.
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!
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