Industrial designers create products – a task that goes far beyond the design of form and function. Industrial designers assume a pathbreaking and responsible role in present-day society. They work in the contradictory context of technology, economy and society; they set trends in everyday life, in recreational and professional fields; they release innovations; they mould society in a crucial way.
Bachelor graduates will find a complex vocational field: as employees in design agencies or design departements of big companies, as independent professionals with an own studio, as curators and facilitators in the context of exhibitions and editorial activities, as consultants and concept developers, in the fields of art direction and product management, or as researchers in an academic environment.
Bachelor graduates will find a complex vocational field: as employees in design agencies or design departements of big companies, as independent professionals with an own studio, as curators and facilitators in the context of exhibitions and editorial activities, as consultants and concept developers, in the fields of art direction and product management, or as researchers in an academic environment.
With the graduation as „Bachelor of Arts“, the industrial design programme, situated at the departement of design of the Zurich University of the Arts, provides students with a well-grounded vocational qualification. Core design competencies such as material skills, formshaping, sketching technique, CAD and the knowledge of different production processes are part of the education along with the ability to analyse social change and find innovative solutions for relevant problems.
The course focuses on three learning outcomes: the ability to think and act conceptually, the development of self-contained ideas and the certainty in formal and esthetic expression.
The course focuses on three learning outcomes: the ability to think and act conceptually, the development of self-contained ideas and the certainty in formal and esthetic expression.
In Europe, the Zurich University of the Arts is one of the largest institutions of its kind. Study, traineeship and research take place in an interdisciplinary context and with focus on a practical, contemporary vocational qualification.
The industrial design programme disposes of well equipped workshops, a specialised library and a network of expierenced teachers and lecturers. Thus, this programme with its broad educational pretensions stands in one line with the long tradition of high quality swiss product design.
The industrial design programme disposes of well equipped workshops, a specialised library and a network of expierenced teachers and lecturers. Thus, this programme with its broad educational pretensions stands in one line with the long tradition of high quality swiss product design.
The industrial design programme centers / focuses on:
- symbolic meaning of products / product semantics
- innovation, product conception and connected / related context knowledge
- critical and analytical observation
- design processes and methods
- communication and presentation
- meaning of function and representation
- technical products and products for everyday life
- products for sport and leisure
Numerous design competitions and contests reflect the importance of design in our society. With regularity, our industrial design graduates win recognized awards, such as the federal promotion award for design, the swiss design price, the Dyson student design award or the IF product award. Successful students’ works are shown in the frame of national and international exhibitions and fairs where they find reverbration even before graduation.
Numerous partnerships with private companies as well as with national and international universities guarantee the connection of the studies to relevant economic and scientific questions. For example when students develop new cooking pans in cooperation with swiss producer Kuhn Rikon AG, when BMW head designer David Robbs leads a project concerning the development of motorcycles for the year 2015, when Baltensweiler asks for innovative lamps and luminaires or when Freitag Lab AG searches for future product concepts – to name just a few of the most recent examples.
The longtermed Swiss University Innovation project, briefly SUIP, a cooperation of the industrial design programm at ZHdK with ETH Zurich, Zurich university and St. Gallen university along with ever changing industrial customers, has been very successful. Once a year, SUIP offers students of the involved academies the possibility to work practically during several weeks in interdisciplinary teams on a concrete development task.
The longtermed Swiss University Innovation project, briefly SUIP, a cooperation of the industrial design programm at ZHdK with ETH Zurich, Zurich university and St. Gallen university along with ever changing industrial customers, has been very successful. Once a year, SUIP offers students of the involved academies the possibility to work practically during several weeks in interdisciplinary teams on a concrete development task.