Product Design (Diplom)

Here you can get to the Homepage of the Product Design: produktdesignkassel.de

Design pervades our everyday lives. Whatever we do, there are always products there with us. Whether as technological devices, as industrial products, in the form of furniture, clothing, accessories on up to analogue and digital spaces as well as entire systems–design is ubiquitous and often responsible for how people structure their daily lives, how they cultivate their social relationships, and how they assign value to their experiences.

Against this backdrop, the job profile of designers has become professionalized into a complex field of activity. If in former times the designing of ordinary things was mostly a matter of tradition, today it is considered a cultural technology, demanding a wide variety of skills. Inventiveness and craftsmanship combine with broad knowledge about materials, technologies, manufacturing processes, and aesthetic developments–not least requiring a critical awareness of social and political conditions!

The study program in product design at the Kunsthochschule Kassel integrates all these areas. In projects and seminars students learn how things are creatively drafted, tested in prototypes, and finally brought to full implementation. They work in close association with the professors in the program, with access to a variety of workshops and digital tools at the Kunsthochschule, thus getting the opportunity to develop their own concepts step by step. An endowed professorship on the work of Lucius Burckhardt as well as a project professorship awarded each year to an internationally outstanding design figure complete the course offerings.

The program in Kassel follows a holistic approach. Alongside developing and refining practical design competence, it is about developing the ability to play a role in society through design work. 

At a glance

• Degree: Diplom (corresponding to the masters degree in a design department).
• Transferring into a design department with a bachelors degree is possible.
• Start of studies: each winter semester.
• Prescribed period of study: 9 semesters.
• A previous technical internship of nine months is required, of which at least two months should be demonstrated by the start of studies. Students who have already completed technical training in the areas of woodworking, metalworking, or textile processing are not required to complete an internship.

Formal requirements

• General qualification for university admittance
• Qualification for technical university
• Professional qualification (university admittance without Abitur)

You can get an overview of the various degrees and their differences at the informational website "Zugangsvoraussetzungen [Admission Requirements]" of the Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts.