Preface
Welcome TONI! Having moved from our old and rather cosy premises, the Master programme has now settled into the creative city of the Toni Campus. The fact that we are closer to the workshops, the library and our colleagues in staff, research, and from the Bachelor courses, has made daily life easier and given strong impetus to the Master programme. Despite the efforts it took to move, the past academic year has nonetheless been a successful one.
Some of our Master’s students participated in the International Design Summer School in Shanghai. In September 2014, we launched the Master atelier in the new Campus with the 2nd semester students. In February 2015, 43 new students started their MA course, pursuing different Master specialisations. One of the highlights of the year was the International Design Workshop, held simultaneously at the ZHdK Connecting Space in Hong Kong and at the Master atelier in Zurich, and exploring and designing the topic “IntenCity” from the perspectives of both cities. With regard to developing stronger relations with design research, we were able to integrate the project “Science Tool-Science Toy” into the curricula for the next two years. In addition, we produced the multimedia interactive installation “Fragments of Switzerland” at Swissnex in Rio de Janeiro, opening up an exciting new visual dialogue between Switzerland and Brazil.
And now, we are pleased to exhibit 25 Master Design projects, remarkable for their high level of design knowledge and excellent results. Taking the previous Master degree classes as our reference, we look forward, with great anticipation, to the launch of successful individual careers, combined with research grants, design awards and challenging professional lives.
We wish the 2015 graduates all the best for the upcoming future.
Professor Michael Krohn
Head of Master of Arts in Design
Specialisations
The Master of Arts in Design at the Zurich University of the Arts offers designers and individuals from related disciplines an outstanding opportunity to further develop their individual expertise and attain cutting-edge excellence. The programme, which runs for one year and a half, requires students to be self-driven, innovative, and to have a genuine interest in interdisciplinary approaches, as well as in acquiring and applying various research methods.
The main objective of the Master in Design is to qualify students for complex professional challenges, whether at the interface of research/innovation, design practice/private enterprise, or education/communications. Master students deepen and expand not only their specialist knowledge and skills, but also create particular career opportunities for themselves. With these goals in mind, our programme focuses on the individual student and is project-driven.
Based on their experience and personal interests, students major in one of the six partially overlapping specialisations:
EREIGNIS
Events are becoming increasingly important within commercial and non-commercial communication and dissemination strategies. Students majoring in “Ereignis” develop and stage happenings, media interactions as well as artistic interventions at the interface between different design disciplines and dimensions. Projects like “MMH or HMM” show the challenging potential of “Ereignis-Design” investigating food evolution and its production using such strategies as fakery, irritation, provocation, and three-dimensional storytelling. The result is a Future Food Gallery in Zurich.
COMMUNICATION
The world is not becoming more complex – rather, we are increasingly becoming aware of its actual complexity. But how do we navigate a world that astounds us in its profusion of information and sensory experiences? This year’s graduates have tackled various aspects of this problem by exploring new ways of elucidating and transforming expert knowledge; of engaging people to help them express their personal experiences; of fostering debate, critique, and new forms of practice; and of making accessible complex topics in order to support understanding and contemplation.
GAME DESIGN
Games are fun – and skilfully hide the fact that they are thorough constructions. Game designers analyse games in respect of story, graphics, programming, and game mechanics, and use this research for the design of their innovative projects: a career-focused self-coaching tool, an ecological board game for sensitising teenagers, a co-operative parent-child therapy game, a big-screen game for public spheres or a body-tracking adventure game. These projects confirm the trend towards the social integration of games.
INTERACTION DESIGN
Interactions are a fundamental part of our existence. As interaction designers, we investigate the social, phenomenological and aesthetic aspects of actions in our daily life. Our students showcase and reflect on these topics in a wide range of projects, spanning from full-body-engaged dreams of flying, teaching machine logic through gamification, to prototyping systems that foster network-driven thinking. The projects re-think how our society deals with the generation gap, question our food industries and habits, or consider the meaning of rituals in our technologically-infused world.
PRODUCT
Design occupies a leading role in the conception, development, and implementation of innovative products, services and systems. This year’s degree projects show a variety of creative solutions to existing and future necessities. Based on topics related to sports and tourism, the graduates propose inventive and intelligent design solutions with the intention of provoking discussion. Irrespective of whether a product concerns personal health, information systems for Arabic tourists in Switzerland or the potential of summer sledding, design can contribute much more than simple formal answers.
TRENDS
“Trace Trends and Shape the Future” is the core approach of the programme “Trends”. Students develop skills to create both strategic and innovative design concepts and scenarios. This year’s graduates present different views on significant cultural and socio-economic trends in the context of globalisation and local heritage, authenticity and mass-individualisation, as well as sustainability and consumption culture. The visionary design concepts navigate between the futures of travelling, fashion thinking, high street strategic planning, and food waste solutions.
Imprint
master.design.diplome.zhdk.ch/2015
Zurich University of the Arts,
Master of Arts in Design
Degree Show 2015
Project Management,
Exhibition Design:
Karin Zindel
Exhibition Design:
Annina Gähwiler
Technical Support:
Roland Jaggi
Video Portraits:
Daniel Young
Text and image editing:
Karin Zindel
Proofreading:
Sprachling
Graphic Design:
Atlas Studio
Web Development:
Dominik Ogilvie, Avant la lettre
Acknowledgements:
Prof. Hansuli Matter,
Head Department of Design
Prof. Michael Krohn,
Head Master of Arts in Design
Stefano Vannotti,
Head Minor Programme
Bitten Stetter,
Head Ereignis & Trends
Andrea Roca,
Assistant Ereignis & Trends
Max Rheiner,
Head Interaction Design
Clemens Winkler,
Assistant Interaction Design
René Bauer,
Head Game Design
Dr. Mela Kocher,
Senior Researcher Game Design
Dr. Sarah Owens,
Head Communication
Patrik Ferrarelli,
Assistant Communication
Annina Gähwiler,
Assistant Product
Baki Çavdar,
Administration Office Master of Arts in Design
All Mentors and Lecturers
And the first Semester,
Master of Arts in Design