Swinburne Design Factory Melbourne (DFM) is a world-leading innovation lab, the third founding Design Factory in a network of global partners – and the first in the southern hemisphere. 

A team of sector-agnostic, interdisciplinary experts, Design Factory Melbourne:  

  • unpacks your organisation’s complex problems using design thinking 
  • converts your ideas into tangible concepts 
  • operates as a sandbox to mitigate risk, test ideas, explore customer segments, and expand the market 
  • connects your organisation to Swinburne’s research ecosystem. 


Students from all disciplines can study with Design Factory Melbourne for an immersive, hands-on experience, living and breathing organisations’ real-world problems.

Why Design Factory Melbourne?

Global

We’re one of the founding Design Factories in the Design Factory Global Network: innovation hubs spanning five continents.

Experienced

Over 10 years, Design Factory Melbourne has delivered 100+ client projects and 100+ student projects.

Connected

As part of Swinburne, we harness cutting-edge knowledge, people, skills and facilities.

Interdisciplinary

Every project comes with an interdisciplinary team. Diverse minds for diverse challenges.

Design-led

DFM methodology is informed by design inspired research to unpack concepts and convert to solutions.

Innovate with Design Factory Melbourne

  • A group of six people/students discussing.

    Study innovation

    Innovate while you study, working hands-on with students across Swinburne and collaborating with industry partners, solving complex, real-world problems.

    Find out more (Study innovation)
  • A group of four people sitting and discussing.

    Become an innovative business

    Bring your challenge to solve through user experience research, innovative product development, creative collaboration, customised training and facilitation.

    Find out more (Become an innovative business)

Services available

Driving the passion for doing

Design Factory Melbourne’s co-design approach is unique, providing critical front-end work that drives organisations’ innovations. Capable of bringing value to diverse programs of work, be it for large-scale business, government or not-for-profits, the Design Factory Melbourne team provides: 

  • interdisciplinary talent: communication and industrial designers, architects, allied health experts, social scientists, engineers and more 
  • experimental methods to solve innovation challenges 
  • a range of industry services – from innovation capability training, through to developing and testing of early-stage prototypes.

Dive deeper

Get to know who we are, how we work, and how we’ve brought value to clients around Australia and the world.

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Have any questions?

Get in touch with us to see how we can help with your innovation efforts.

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