Product Design

Minor 'Not Only Design' in short

• You learn to design in a searching and recurring way.
• You are open, curious and interested in the unknown and the unexpected
• You like to give your 'statement' a material form
• You interact with different people about a location of your choice somewhere on earth and integrate your findings in your project
• In this minor you work independently and under your own direction

Course information

In the Minor 'Not Only Design' you learn searching and recurring design. At HKU Design you will not find formulas or step-by-step plans that lead to guaranteed success. Every time we ask for an open attitude towards an issue. You discover the widest possible range of techniques and you have as much contact as possible with those involved during the creation and design process.

The Minor 'Not only Designæ consists of two parts that will increasingly coincide over the course of the minor:

• In the first part you choose a place in the world that you find exciting or interesting. You go to that place, in that place, to that place, conduct research from that place. Not just creating, not just online, but mainly by connecting with people "on the spot".
• You also start a design process. That project may arise from the research into the "place", but may also concern an existing fascination. This project must have or acquire a relationship with the chosen place in the world, but you must decide for yourself what that relationship will look like (and this may of course change during the course of the minor).

What will you learn?

In the Minor 'Not only Design' you base your design process on the four characteristics that Tim Ingold attributes to anthropological artistic research: generous, comparative, critical and "open-ended".

• Critical means not settling for the world as it presents itself to us.
• Comparing from the awareness that there are multiple paths in the search for and in that world.
• Open-ended because every step reveals new possibilities to us that must be taken seriously.
• Generous in the realization that seeking is always a matter of give and take.

Supervision in this minor is organized differently than you are probably used to. Each student composes a panel of "others", and develops their own project in interaction with that panel. Your panel will include at least locals from the chosen location, but also fellow students or teachers, experts and coaches.

At least one of the panel members is a HKU teacher, but you decide in which role this teacher will be placed. In this way you build up that panel during the course of the semester by asking yourself every two weeks which "others" are needed now.

In this minor you work independently and mainly under your own direction, but you do have many contact moments. We aim to organize a free-space-like meeting at least one evening a week in which all participants in the minor are in mutual conversation.

Learning goals

1. Independently set up a design or research project and develop it into a presentation.
2. Integrate previously acquired knowledge, skills and attitudes into your own project.
3. Independently shape your personal fascination in the design process.
4. Organize meetings that help you further realize your (research) project.
5. Reflect on your process and adjust if necessary.
6. Communicate about your choices.
7. Demonstrate the significance of the project for your position in your field and field of work.

Place in the curriculum and related courses

This course is an elective minor in year 3 of the Bachelor of Product Design.

Students

Please note that within this minor students from different HKU programs and students from various art and design programs from other institutions in the Netherlands will participate as well as 3rd year HKU Fashion Design students.

Language

Please note that the Bachelor programme is mainly taught in Dutch and exchange students are expected to be able to understand some Dutch. It is quite common that exchange students don't understand Dutch on a high level when they start at Product Design and you will of course be supervised in English.

During the Exchange period students get a buddy who will help them finding their way in the curriculum & school and will translate the essentials of classes.