First Media Design School has a long track record of engaging in internationalisation. Since 2011, we have been licensing our Advanced Diploma in Visual Communication (Graphic Design) and Advanced Diploma in Visual Communication (Multimedia) to Raffles College in Jakarta. Aside from that, we have also partnership agreements with Southwestern University Phinma School of Design and Communication (sd+c), Philippines and Delta Institute, Mauritius. We also currently have credit recognition with the University of the West of England Bristol for entry into their Bachelor of Arts Founded in 2005, First Media Design School (FMDS) was previously known as First International Design School. It was a partnership between Lancer Design Pte Ltd, Coleman Creative Design School (CCDS) and Inspiration Design School (IDS). Both CCDS and IDS were private design educational institutions with over a decade’s experience in the education field before this merger.

Close to 1,000 students have successfully graduated from our diploma and former Bachelor’s programs, with hundreds more having gone through our Workforce Skills Qualifications courses. Many, if not most of these students have gone on to establish themselves as designers, design managers and designpreneurs in the design industry in Singapore and abroad.

The mission of FMDS is to cultivate a new generation of ‘whole brain’ trained, industry-ready designers who possess both creative and commercial cognitive abilities, through its holistic design thinking and designpreneurship pedagogy. In this way, we hope to turn ordinary individuals into designers, designers into managers, and managers into designpreneurs.

The aim of designpreneurship is not just to assist designers in creating a successful design business, but to impact the community with meaningful design. A designpreneur takes the path less travelled, constantly offering refreshing perspectives and empowering the people he touches. They are recognized for their hard work, and fulfills their potential to leave an enduring legacy.

FMDS believes in a multidimensional thinking approach that combines hard skills, soft skills, and self-discovery as essential developmental areas for holistic designpreneurs. Designpreneurs are trained to take calculated risks, harness the right resources to innovate, and truly empathize with their clients in order to lead them to new ground. Designpreneurs therefore need to understand facts, sense their feelings, see the future, and form linkages to create more holistic design solutions. Through formal instruction, real-world practice, and mentorship, we have been making this happen since 2005.