Program Overview

Education Model

The goal of the two-year Industrial Design master's degree program is to train you to become a self-directed industrial designer with a unique competence profile. Together with your coaches, you will develop this profile based on your identity and your vision on design, technology and society, your professional ambitions and the areas of expertise you want to master.

Areas of Expertise

Our educational approach is based around five areas of expertise:

• Creativity and Aesthetics
• Technology and Realization
• Users and Society
• Business and Entrepreneurship
• Math, Data and Computing

You will work on all five areas, but you will choose at least two expertises in which you will specialize further. Furthermore, you will study design and research processes.

Learning Activities

To support you in developing your unique profile, you choose electives and projects that fit your vision, ambitions and specialization. You are responsible for your own development and compose the vast majority of your program yourself, under the guidance of your coaches, of course. Besides two compulsory courses and electives, projects are the backbone of this program.

Projects

In our competence-based educational approach, you immediately apply what you learn. In authentic design or design research projects you integrate the knowledge, skills and mindset from the areas of expertise. In addition, you develop your academic and professional skills in your projects, which often involve collaboration with a 'real' client – a company, government agency, researcher, or NGO.

Specialization Tracks

How you will apply the specific mindset, knowledge and skills from the areas of expertise depends on your track. The tracks are based on the job opportunities of industrial design graduates and prepare you for the transition to the working field or academia. You choose a track that matches your professional ambitions.

• Research, Design and Development: Are you aiming to work in the R&D or design department of a large company or government institute?
• Design Leadership and Entrepreneurship: Are you a future design manager or entrepreneur?
• Constructive Design Research: Are you looking to contribute to the international design research community?

External Learning Activities and Graduation Project

The first semester of your second year is dedicated to completing your development towards your Final Master (Graduation) Project and career after ID. The set-up for this semester is very individual; every student requires a different plan. You can choose to already prepare for your Final Master Project; or do a separate project/learning activity to develop the competences you will need in order to start your FMP in the subsequent semester.

• Project in or outside the department, or at a company
• International exchange
• Master courses at another department/university in the Netherlands
• During this semester you also work on your FMP Proposal.

Student Projects

Examples of student projects include:

• Soundsnip: Making music with sound snips
• Acorn to artefact: Group project on biocomposite
• Algaerithm: Recipes based on the structure of algae
• A place worth living in: Project to include refugees in decision making
• Cometicate: System to increase trust of users of self-driving cars
• Liquid crystal polymers: Tool for soft robotics researchers to create shape-changing soft actuator arrays
• Shape changing food: Development of shape-changing food with top chefs
• ADHD tool: Guide that assists designers in creating tools for individuals with ADHD

Final Master Project (Graduation Project)

As a graduate student, you work towards a clear competence profile, resulting in the integration of your strongest expertise areas, driven by a unique and personal vision on designing. Therefore, the set-up of the Final Master Project is very individual; every student requires a different plan. A graduation mentor will support you from the second semester of the first year until your graduation.