Minor Not only Design

Minor Not Only Design in a nutshell

• You learn how to conduct investigative design by means of creation experiments.
• You work with an open view, with curiosity and an interest in the unknown and the unexpected.
• You work in a studio and gain access to all our workshops and technical knowledge and skills.
• This minor is available in semester 1 (1 Sept 2024 – 1 February 2025).

About this minor

Our designers and artists at HKU Design work from a restless curiosity about what would be possible when you break the rules of your profession or field or work. A curiosity about what happens when you combine that which may not be combined. And about what is possible when you dare to take risks; to let go of working towards a guaranteed result, but instead trust that your exploration will always get you somewhere, even if it’s not where you initially expected to end up. Our designers constantly question their own methods and practice in order to get towards innovation. They do so by looking, investigating, reading, thinking, but above all: creating.

The minor ‘Not Only Design’ allows you to give free rein to this restless curiosity for six months long. To find an answer to the question what becomes possible when you choose to research your own profession or sector through designing.

Learning goals

After completing this minor, you have learned how you can look at your own field of work by designing and investigating. You have mastered design insights and techniques, learned theoretical insights, but above all: you have learned to engage in the intuitive experiment, reflect on it, and to trust your own designing abilities.

Conclusions and assessment criteria

Assessment is based on participation and on whether you enter a work process, as made visible in a portfolio and a (visual) research report. This portfolio and (visual) research report provide the documentation of a range of design experiments and the reflection on them in their mutual coherence. The design experiments may all have failed, as long as the approach (and the reflection on this approach) proves that you have the attitude of a designer and experimenter. The minor is graded with a rounded whole or half grade.

This minor is full. Registration is no longer possible

For whom?

Not only Design is meant for students from diverse art and design academies, both from the Netherlands and abroad. Yet we also explicitly invite third- or fourth-year students from outside the arts education to get a six-months-long introduction to our approach of investigative designing. We reach out to anyone who has this mentioned restless curiosity and is willing to give it a try.

Please note that the language of instruction for this minor is Dutch. Although international students can receive individual coaching in English, proficiency in Dutch is required to study this minor.

Admission requirements

We have a limited number of admissible students and use a matching system. We invite everyone to plan a meeting in which we can together put your restless curiosity into words. Selection is based on curiosity, open-mindedness, a tendency to think out of the box and the willingness to work under guidance in a studio setting, for at least four days per week. You really should be able to take control of your own process, and work at the level of a third- or fourth-year bachelor.

Would you like to know more?

Please see our frequently asked questions first. Can’t find the answer you need? You can contact the Service Desk Student Affairs. They can help you with questions about (nearly) everything related to studying at HKU.