Discover Benelux |  Special Theme |  Design

Surrounded by design TEXT & PHOTOS: DESIGN ACADEMY EINDHOVEN

Design Academy Eindhoven. This school  was  established  in  1947 and focuses totally on design and offers  a  Bachelor  and  Master course to its students. Dutch design is well known for its functionality,  its  originality  and  its  typical approach  on  how  to  deal  with questions  and  problems.  Design Academy  Eindhoven  challenges its students to come up with original  solutions  for  everyday  questions and problems.

Design surrounds us and is everywhere although very often unnoticed by the user. Everything around the human being has been designed. If  you  are  in  your  living  room,  the dining table, the wallpaper, chairs, sofa  and  carpet;  they  are  all  the outcome of a creative process. And look  at  your  desk:  every  piece  of paper, your mobile phone, your laptop, every colour, every shape and every  application  has  been  designed and/or engineered. Go outside and look at your car, your bicycle, the train or even the streetlamps. A designer thought about it before production could even start. Either purchased in a design furniture store or at Ikea, always a designer or group of designers made decisions about shape, colour, material et cetera. Naturally this says nothing about the value of the product. Neither does it determine if the product is beautiful or dis-

tasteful.  That  is  up  to  the  user  to  decide.  In  the  world  of  design,  Dutch  designers play a prominent role. The products developed  by  the  Dutch  are  appreciated throughout the world and ‘Dutch Design’ became  synonymous  for  products  that combine  self-evident  shapes  and  userfriendliness with beauty and originality.

About 40 per cent of our student population  has  an  international  background.  All teachers only teach at Eindhoven for one day a week and have an established practice as designer or artist. Through this, Design  Academy  Eindhoven  students  are constantly challenged to go beyond borders, since there lies the unexpected solutions that lead to good design.

A vast majority of the internationally wellknown Dutch designers were educated at

Issue 12 |  December 2014 |  37