BA/MA Product Design
Even though the boundaries between disciplines are becoming increasingly fuzzy, specific conditions are still constitutive for design. Social and functional parameters provide the framework within which the functions and utility of products are conceived. The designer’s task is to interpret these parameters, to reformulate, bend, or even partially suspend them. In so doing, designers define what convention is, remains, or becomes.
Design, with its specific methodology, has become increasingly relevant as a catalyst for generating and visualizing new approaches to theoretical and applied solutions in many scientific, economic and social areas. The fields of activity open to emerging designers today are correspondingly multifaceted and challenging.
The bachelor’s program prepares students for work in this dynamically evolving profession. The aim is to train competent design-personalities who are in a position to act responsibly and independently in social, economic, cultural, technological and ecological contexts.
During the first year of the four-year bachelor’s program, an interdisciplinary course imparts art and design fundamentals to students in all departments of the School of Art. The following three years are organized around projects. Designated project themes form the framework for the development of each student’s inquiries. Analog and digital design methods are used to generate user-oriented solutions within defined contexts. Studio workshops offer outstanding options for simulation and realization in the design process. The ability to deal with criticism, as well as a analytical approach to thinking and working, are important aspects of the project work. In addition to the central components of “conception and design”, the coursework conveys extensive theoretical, methodological and creative knowledge and skills.
Interdisciplinary exchange with other departments is encouraged through spatial proximity and an array of coordinated projects. Numerous collaborations are cultivated with partners involved in research and practical applications.
The master’s program in product design enables students to responsibly and confidently develop their own creative position, in order to encounter and deal with complex creative issues in a comprehensive and sustainable way.
The goal is to perfect the individual’s own creative competence through a combination of research and development processes in different disciplines. Graduates of the master’s course in product design should be in a position in the future to direct complex developmental projects and to make an impact on the discipline itself.
The Weissensee course model offers three profiles of concentration within the MA Product Design:
• Design and Mobility
• Design and Interaction
• Design an experiment
