Design for Impact

"The designer focuses on the context of society"

In this elective program, the students are fascinated by finding their role as product designers in numerous societal challenges. Co-creation and designing with special target groups, climate change, the sharing economy or smaller living, smart product-service systems, they’re all on the menu.

With an extra eye for this social context, the students go through the integral design process of a product. The user as co-creator is central and is involved in the development of new concepts.

These students design in an open or early design stage (It’s called the fuzzy front end). As designers, they use many insights drawn from design methodology, social innovation, service design and user experience. Students come up with new business models for products, 100% circular, 100% meaningful and inclusive, not necessarily 100% tangible.