We live in a design culture which continues to grow in importance. However, design was long neglected by the Arts and Humanities as a field of academic study. But this has changed. Since 1 September 2010, the Faculty of Arts of VU university Amsterdam, offers the first fully accredited, internationally-oriented Master’s programme Design Cultures.

Design has developed into a vibrant and important cultural and economic sector in recent decades. Product design, graphic design and fashion design are burgeoning as a service industry, as street culture and as art. Design is an integral part of our daily lives. Especially in the Netherlands design has built up an excellent international reputation with past and present talent in graphic design, product design, artistic design and fashion. We can boast many famous names including Piet Zwart, Maarten Baas, Thonik and Irma Boom, Artifort, Hella Jongerius, Jurgen Bey, and Viktor & Rolf and many others.

The MA programme Design Cultures is all about the study of product design, graphic design and fashion in a broad diverse cultural context. The focus is on both the designer as ‘author’ and the complex chain of production, sale, consumption and criticism in which design operates and derives its many different meanings. Design Cultures restores design as the core object of academic interest without detracting from the cultural and material context in which it operates. The programme combines a generalist, comparative approach to design with a clear focus on history and theory. 

Click here for more information about the program or visit the official Design Cultures Facebook page or blog.