Integrated Design (M.A.)

The teaching area 3D Design – Products and Systems is dedicated to the analysis, development and design of the three-dimensional, man-made environments and artefacts, regardless of whether they are for private or industrial use, whether they are analog or digital. The focus is not on the products themselves, but on the relationships between people and products and between products and the environment. 

The teaching area promotes critical and complex thinking in structures and qualifies you to create solutions not only on a product level, but also on a meta or system level.

Images communicate differently than text. Moving images communicate differently than still images. Time-based media, moving images and sound contain their own set of rules of time, movement and montage. Due to the everyday presence of digital media, on the one hand we have developed a strongly intuitive sensorium and an attention to the functioning of moving images, on the other hand we are also subject to the hypnotic pull that films can create, so that we forget our surroundings. 

In digital and online media, images, writing, language, music, sound and noise enter into new relationships with each other. Designers and artists sometimes include the interactions of viewers with media in their concepts. 

Information will follow soon.

The study programme Photography is based on the photographic image and the phenomena connected to it. Its expression must be convincing and formulate a credible statement. It is irrelevant whether the photographic image describes or interprets the space between the author of an image and the world abstractly or concretely, symbolically or semiotically.

“Basics of design” is about training independent research in the area of form development and perceiving and naming sculptural qualities. Important aspects are: symmetry, grid, modularity, proportion, composition, division, combination, tiling, rhythm, shape, material, colour, surface texture, point, line, surface, body, space.

Operating freely between the different directions in the disciplines of visual communication and fine arts, Illustration at the HfK Bremen pursues a multidisciplinary approach, which ranges from advertising, editorial and book illustration to comics and animation to sculpture, painting, installation, film and performance. We practice a wide range of technical exploration, from the archaic origins of drawing to the most sophisticated digital techniques, but always remain grounded in the art of analogue drawing. The subject is taught with a focus on a professional career or further studies in the field, also with regard to illustrative qualities in relation to related subjects in the field of art and design. 

As a study programme, Interaction Design is dedicated to the design of digital and digital-analog “interfaces” between people and technology, data, objects and spaces. 

The increasing digitalisation of our world and the associated, continuous transfer and transformation of human actions into the digital sphere create completely new challenges and potential for designers. 

Communication is a breath-taking, creative world full of energy that needs holistic attention at every moment. A meaningful space of creative thinking and making, research and application in the context of social developments. What that means? Find ideas. Passionate. Unconventional. Develop strategies that create identification. Feeling expression and identity, making it aesthetically visible and tangible – individually and collectively. The process challenges us and requires sensitivity, judgment and intuition. Visual communication must be open – for the unknown, for communication and change. With and for people. With character. Do it and experience responsibility and design.

As an important medium for the representation and development of products, Constructive Geometry is one of the universal teaching areas of design training. There is hardly a product of design, graphics and architecture that has not been developed based on or with the help of geometry. Geometric knowledge and skills are a prerequisite not only for developing new things, but also for understanding what already exists. Geometry serves as a rational basis for navigation through the products of the past, present and future.

Laboratory Creation and Practical Project/Open Chamber are teaching formats in which larger performance projects are developed in conjunction with music, theatrical means and installation. 

The aim is to deepen and conceptually use the body, gestures and objects in design projects that are located at the interface of music, new media, composition, performance and the cultural scene.

The study programme covers all eras and media in art history from antiquity to the present, from icons to digital images, from mosaics to film, from sculpture to performance, as well as book design, architecture, installation and photography. In particular, art theory as a broad historical and systematic field is included, from antiquity to all current positions. In the sense of a general, academic exploration of images, the programme also includes many other areas of visual culture that cannot be classified as art in the narrower sense, such as images in propaganda, advertising, science and popular culture. The area of cultural theory is correspondingly broad, covering prehistoric, transcultural and non-European phenomena as well as phenomena of postmodernity, post-colonialism and the present.

In the process of model development, three-dimensional body architectures are created from two-dimensional material. The choice of materials and materiality as well as the inclusion of new technologies are important in view of dwindling resources, sustainability and recycling. Different methodological approaches such as construction and draping are used. Research exercises form the basis for design-relevant decisions.

Fashion is constantly renewing itself and can react quickly to social developments and events. In this dynamic system, a strong and critical attitude, sustainable action and comprehensive theoretical, visual and practical research are fundamental. This results in individual concepts, relevant contexts and complex design processes. Knowledge of textile materials and the corresponding processing or manipulation also has a decisive influence on the design of body-hugging products and two-dimensional patterns.

The study programme Product Design/CAD accompanies the entire product development process from taken on a task to implementation. The quality of a product is assessed based on the practical functions and inherent semantics of a product versus the stress that a product causes. 

Students who take part in the consecutive courses in the Product Design/CAD area should be able to independently develop complex three-dimensional products as creators or product designers.

The study programme Professionalisation offers teaching on the basics of economic existence and reflections on the framework conditions of the creative industries, promoting key skills and building professional networks as well as the future viability of the design professions. The aim is to develop the ability for independent and economically sustainable positioning in the contexts of choice.

With the aim to critically reflect space as a temporary category, the interdisciplinary field Temporary Spaces deals with historical, political, social, technological, and aesthetic aspects of spatial production. Beyond disciplinary conventions and medial boundaries, this area of teaching engages in practices that include experimentation with space, in different scales, from urban interventions to video, installations, performances, objects, models, sound, and text. Based on research into critical, feminist and queer theories, architecture history, socialist architectural utopias, as well as ancient philosophy, the projects in the field of Temporary Spaces develop reflexive aesthetic experiences.

The study programme Theory and History of the Arts can no longer work from a purely western perspective, as has been common in the practice of the discipline for a long time. As the arts and design become networked and globalised more and more, including their systems for production, reception and distribution, a differentiated position is required.

The Theory and History of Design is not an academic discipline in the strict sense. It is made up of aspects from a wide variety of disciplines and methodological approaches, ranging from art and cultural studies to social and media sciences to philosophy, ethnology, anthropology, etc. An ontological demarcation of what exactly design is all about, is hardly possible: When you look around, you inevitably come across objects that have been shaped. Designers were at work everywhere to make media and techniques, art and culture, forms of knowledge and entertainment formats useful and usable for us. And yet not everything is design that can be used.

Typography makes language legible and influences the message of a text, whereby the term "legible" must be constantly renegotiated. In this respect, typography is a powerful tool and is critically reflected upon at the HfK. The expressive possibilities of typography are constantly being developed and expanded. Contemporary experiments in the field of typography respond to the complex needs of global, intermedial communication and inclusive areas of application as well as the use of different writing systems. At the HfK, type is moved, digital, three-dimensional, knitted, drawn, painted, printed and developed in various interdisciplinary contexts. The media used are just as diverse as the projects and depend on the respective context. With regard to language and type, Editorial Design is an area at the HfK in which the interactions between text and image in print, digital and hybrid areas are researched. The examination of the history of typography, which is closely linked to the respective tools used or technological developments, as well as to societal, political and social changes, is integrated into the respective workshop and project programmes.

The study programme aims to enable students of acting in design processes of a wide variety of orientations. A core element of this is designing by applying experimental drawing methods and strategies. Drawing = Designing summarises the classic graphic design in the broadest sense: analogue and digital, collage-like and also in an extension of 2D sketching into 3D and 4D. Through the act of drawing, ideas are created, recorded, sharpened, discussed and communicated. This can be applied to all disciplines, even if people, their clothing/fashion and body-hugging products are in focus here.

Teaching in Drawing can be roughly divided into three categories. In specific teaching situations, these categories often come into play simultaneously. 

Aesthetics and perception
This is about developing an understanding of visual perception and the representational and affective function of lines, surfaces, drawn objects and space. 

Artistic experiences and skills
Drawing is also a craft. When drawing, illustrators rely on their own implicit and embodied knowledge. They develop this knowledge through frequent drawing. 

Conceptual and responsible work 
An attempt is made to create a framework in which students can consistently develop their work.