With its subject and thematic breadth, the Integrated Design degree programme offers a comprehensive qualification for current and future fields of action in design. It enables the compilation of individual profiles from the 16 teaching areas:
• 3-D design/products and systems
• Communication Design/Corporate Design
• Constructive Geometry
• Creation and interpretation (sound, performance, concept)
• Drawing
• Fashion Design/Experimental Design
• Fashion design/Unique pieces and programmes
• Illustration
• Interaction Design
• Model Design/Pattern Design/CAD
• Moving Image
• Photography
• Product Design/CAD
• Professionalisation
• Temporary Buildings
• Theory and history of design
• Typography
In addition, courses from the liberal arts, digital media and science can be taken. Ten excellently equipped workshops as well as a high level of supervision allow for individually tailored studies that train unique designer personalities with a high degree of self-determination.
The Integrated Design degree programme emphasises interdisciplinary exchange with the various teaching areas and fields of work. This methodological and subject-related opening makes it possible to get to know the most diverse ways of thinking and acting in design and to systematically integrate them into one's own work. The spectrum ranges from basic artistic design skills and conceptual reflection processes to design and cultural history aspects to experimental handling of analogue and digital design practices and production methods.
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Duration of study: 7 semesters, Qualification: Bachelor of Arts
The Bachelor's degree programme comprises seven semesters. All teaching areas can be freely combined.
Brief Profile of the study courseFor 20 years, the Bremen University of the Arts has successfully offered the Integrated Design (ID) degree programme; it is unique in Germany in its consistent and comprehensive orientation. The Bachelor's degree programme (BA) no longer separates the traditional disciplines of design, it puts the overarching, conceptual creativity in the foreground. In this way, the ID is reacting to the changes in the design profession: the post-industrial society has produced a variety of new fields of activity alongside the traditional "industrial design", which require different profiles than before. As a university of the arts, the HfK Bremen can meet these requirements with an expanded concept of design: Design not only aims at the practicability of form and purpose, it also designs for social and cultural, ecological and economic relevance in society. The BA programme therefore teaches how to deal with complex issues as a design attitude and responsibility.
In this sense, integrated design is first of all a way of thinking. However, it is also a method for the curriculum: BA students should develop their individual position through a high degree of choice. They learn through the specific combination of theory and practice: the researching, analytical-critical perspective acts on and alternates with the concrete work on the project, a solution- and application-related implementation or implementation into artistic-design artefacts and concepts.
The BA students can choose between the universal breadth of design to specialising in media as well as design directions. Both profiles are equally in demand as a career today. The high number of 16 professorially staffed specialisations in the ID enables students to choose from a wide range of combinations with targeted individual support supervision. To this end, the degree programme systematically combines modules that teach the basics (media, materials, methods) with creative project work, which above all promotes personal profiling, interdisciplinary approaches, an understanding of the interactions and relationships between the analogue and the digital.
relations between the analogue and the digital, as hybrid areas, as well as personal responsibility and the ability to work in a team. In addition, studying across the boundaries of the degree programme is particularly encouraged: it is not only studied together in the cultural studies and professionalisation courses, but through specifically established interdisciplinary professorships between art, design, digital media and music, mutual enrichment and exchange of perspectives is ensured.
The degree programme is aimed at young people with artistic and creative talent and a research-oriented attitude towards people, culture and society.
Lecturers
This programme begins by exploring the fundamental elements of design in a series of workshops: perception, conception, and representation. Students are introduced to the areas of study available under this programme and the various technical workshops and studios. Further studies are carried out in a series of thematic modules from which students can select elements from each area of study.
The core modules are:
→ Module Structure Integrated Design Bachelor
→ Discontinued module structure Integrated Design Bachelor
→ Module Manual Integrated Design Bachelor
hich career paths does Integrated Design address for its Bachelor graduates?
In the BA programme, students lay the foundation for their own design practice, which they develop in intensive project work and represent in their final thesis. The Integrated Design degree programme prepares students for diverse, dynamic and constantly changing professional fields in overarching, multidisciplinary contexts. Perseverance and courage to engage with new forms of communication and future practices in the social are taught as well as basic and specific forms of design and communication. They have qualified themselves with an independent profile to work as designers in different contexts. They can work independently in their own studio, in independent collectives, in design offices or cross-media agencies (e.g. for brand development), for fashion labels, in theatres, media and production studios (e.g. for interdisciplinary media art), publishing houses or design departments of companies and public institutions. The HfK attaches great importance to an education in which networked and analytical thinking leads to responsible and sustainable design. Graduates are conceptually and creatively competent to develop and implement unconventional and surprising solutions. Central to this is the idea that only interdisciplinary thinking that takes different approaches into account leads to new forms and to courageously shaping the future.
Duration: 3 Semester, Qualification: Master of Arts
We would like to point out that the MA programme INTEGRATED DESIGN will be offered for the last time in 5 studio formations for the application in summer semester 2023. The studios form thematically focused, usually interdisciplinary teams.
The reformed MA programme INTEGRATED DESIGN will be shortened from four to three semesters in the course of the reorientation from winter semester 2023/24. The MA programme adopts the model successfully practised in the Bachelor's programme of offering all study foci of Integrated Design and thus enabling students to develop a wide range of individual profiles - be it by combining several subject areas or by concentrating content focal points. The latter is reflected in the previous 5 studio formations and for the current Masterpool application cycle.
The Master's programme in Integrated Design is a consecutive continuation of the Bachelor's programme of the same name, and is also aimed specifically at external applicants with the appropriate qualifications. The Master's programme does not separate the traditional disciplines of design. The students are to design their own focus.
The constant change in societal, cultural, social, technological and aesthetic contexts affects design more than ever; the boundaries of traditional disciplines are increasingly being overcome. The Master's programme in Integrated Design conceives design research and practice as integrated thinking and action in interdisciplinary contexts. The Master's programme aims at creative and interdisciplinary work that can be expressed methodically and openly in all media of design.
Teaching programme
As a consecutive continuation of the BA programme, the Master's programme in Integrated Design at the HfK offers differentiated focus programmes for the personal development of top competences with a binding course of study. Knowledge already acquired is deepened according to the student's individual interests through research, questioning and realisation of conceptual, experimental, inventive or design processes.
Working in teams and in individual projects enables graduates to implement their competences in professional contexts and to take a leading role in innovation and design processes.
The courses on theory and history, technologies and media as well as professionalisation take place both across the board for all and in specific reference to the studios. The one and a half year study programme concludes with the title Master of Arts.
→ Module Structure Integrated Design Master
→ Discontinuing module structure Integrated Design Master
→ Module Manual Integrated Design Master
Which job profiles does Integrated Design address for its Master's graduates?
In addition to the self-chosen specialisation, students should also have the opportunity to network their design orientation in an interdisciplinary way. The first semester has the task of 'integrating', the second semester is dedicated to 'individualising', and in the third semester a 'specialising' component takes place by focusing on the completion of the Master's project. The MA programme therefore combines the component of individual project work with the second component of a workshop series designed for diversity as part of the Integrated Project: In a cycle of workshops/short projects, MA students can choose to experiment within or outside their specialisation, develop research foundations and test creative strategies; they can also, as advanced students, once again broaden their perspective to include new media and methods, new attitudes and positions in design. For this purpose, they again have 16 professorially staffed study foci at their disposal. Course-based teaching will focus on the workshop series to promote networking, transdisciplinary learning. In addition, students who have recently arrived at the HfK Bremen have the opportunity to get to know the ID teachers and to choose the appropriate supervisors for their Master's project. Peer learning is integrated as well as the interactions with liberal arts, digital media and music. The research orientation of the design projects to be worked on is expanded by linking them with the courses offered in the general sciences, and entry into professional life is supported by targeted professionalisation seminars and the "Professional Orientation" module.
As designers, they have developed a creative attitude in addition to their creative handwriting. Once again, after completing their studies, graduates are in a position to independently open up fields of work in a process-oriented and dynamic way. They think and design in an explorative and future-oriented way. They question, search for new insights, methods and aesthetics and have gained experience in acquiring and linking knowledge in thematically related fields. The HfK Bremen offers a course of study that benefits from its proximity to the liberal arts, digital media and music, and also welcomes questions that extend far into the media and social sciences as well as new technologies. The development of design strategies and the visualisation and design of complex social issues offers the key to specific professional practice and design research. Designers qualify for jobs in independent practice and can use their expertise to take on leadership positions. The specific design practice can be found in the independent as well as entrepreneurial design, cultural and creative scene, such as in design offices, cross-media agencies, at fashion labels, at theatres, media and production studios, publishing houses or design departments of companies and public institutions. The degree opens up the possibility for them not only to take on leading functions in design processes, but also for further academic and artistic qualifications, including access to doctoral studies in accordance with the respective doctoral regulations.
A semester abroad is planned from the 3rd semester onwards. The Bremen University of the Arts cooperates with over 20 partner universities in many European countries as well as in Israel, Japan and Korea. The International Office of the HfK supports the planning of a semester abroad with comprehensive organisational and professional advice. Alternatively, an internship can be completed in Germany or abroad. or
