More students choose to study design in Kolding – and 152 new students are now starting the academic year
The workshops, classrooms and canteen are once again full of students. New Bachelor’s and Master’s students are embarking on their studies, while second- and third-year Bachelor’s students are returning. Second-year Master’s students are out in the world, developing their professional skills through internships.
The start of the academic year follows a year of marked growth in interest in the Bachelor’s programme. The number of applicants has risen by 13 per cent compared with last year.
And although Kolding School of Design has a high grade requirement for quota 1 admission, that tells only a small part of the story of how students are admitted to the school.
More than a grade average
The vast majority – 85 per cent – of students on the Bachelor’s programme are admitted through quota 2. Here, applicants are assessed on the basis of their portfolio and an entrance examination, giving them the opportunity to demonstrate their creative and design potential, their ideas, and the way they explore and approach an assignment.
Grades are therefore not the main route into a design education at Kolding School of Design.
This is an important message, as a high quota 1 grade requirement can easily give the impression that the programme is out of reach for young people without exceptionally high grades. In practice, the vast majority of places go to applicants who are assessed on their potential within design.
The new Bachelor’s students are spread across five areas of study: Accessory Design, Fashion Design, Industrial Design, Communication Design and Textile Design.
Over the next three years, they will develop both their creative and analytical skills and learn to investigate, experiment and develop solutions through encounters with materials, people and the world in which design has to function.
In her welcome speech, Rector Carina Christensen pointed out that a design education is not simply about the ability to create something new:
– As it becomes easier to get quick answers, the ability to ask good questions becomes more important. What is actually worth creating? Who is it valuable for? What are the consequences? And does what we design make the world better, easier or more inclusive – or does it simply add more stuff?
The Master’s programme takes professional development to a new level
For the 72 new Master’s students, the start of the academic year is about taking the next step in their development as designers.
On the Master’s programme, they build on their existing expertise while also developing their own position as designers and working more independently with complex challenges where the answers are not known in advance.
Students encounter new knowledge and also contribute to developing it themselves through design, experimentation and collaboration across disciplines.
Among other things, they explore how design can contribute to healthier lives, a more sustainable future and new ways of learning, participating and imagining possibilities.
As Carina Christensen told the new Master’s students:
– You have not come here simply to get better at what you already know how to do. You have come here to go further. To explore new questions, challenge your own thinking and find your own position as a designer.
Design in dialogue with the world
One thing the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes have in common is that design is not developed in isolation from the world around us.
Throughout their studies, students work with companies, public-sector organisations, researchers, civil society and other disciplines. Climate and resources, artificial intelligence and technology, health, well-being and communities are complex issues that cannot be addressed by one discipline alone.
Design can contribute by connecting different forms of knowledge, making needs and perspectives visible, and turning new possibilities into something tangible.
As it was put at this year’s start of term: design only truly matters when it meets the real world.
Meet some of the new faces at the school
– After completing my Bachelor’s degree in Textile Design at Kolding School of Design, I spent two years away from the school, and that actually made me even more aware that there was still a great deal of knowledge and expertise here that I wanted to come back and access. I also looked at other programmes, but Kolding felt both familiar and like the place that could offer me exactly what I was looking for academically. I would like to work more with systems and methods, as well as with questions related to sustainability, nature and culture. Here, I can build on my textile background while also taking it in new directions. I am particularly looking forward to the interdisciplinary nature of the Master’s programme and to studying alongside people from different professional backgrounds and nationalities. I hope that will challenge what I already know and give me new ways of developing the skills I gained during my Bachelor’s degree.
– I’ve known for a long time that I want to become a designer, and Kolding School of Design has always felt like somewhere special to me. It seems like a place with room to think freely, where you’re challenged but also given the space to pursue your own ideas. Among my friends, it has also been somewhere we have really aspired to study. I’m from Horsens, and while I was still at upper secondary school, I attended drawing classes alongside my studies. Since then, I’ve been to a design folk high school, where I focused even more on drawing and became increasingly certain that design was the path I wanted to take. More than anything, I’m looking forward to everyday life at the school: immersing myself in projects, learning new methods and gaining a much deeper understanding of design and of how you develop ideas into something tangible.
– I’m originally from Hamburg, but I’ve learnt Danish and have also attended a Danish folk high school. Choosing Kolding School of Design was a very deliberate decision for me, because it offers the opportunity to work with textiles in a really dedicated and focused way and to get close to both the materials and the craft. I’ve previously done an internship with a weaver, and that made me even more certain that I wanted to immerse myself in textiles. I see Kolding School of Design as a place where I can gain the specialist knowledge and understanding of craftsmanship I’m looking for, while also having the freedom to explore new ways of working with materials and sustainability. I’m also really looking forward to being inspired by my fellow students. It feels like a privilege to study somewhere where so many people share the same passion and curiosity.
– I'm from Brazil and a trained architect. I wanted to explore other ways of designing and see what might happen when you change perspective and work with design at a different scale and on different terms. That is why I applied to Kolding School of Design. I chose Design for Play because I am naturally drawn to a playful approach and curious about what it can open up in a design process. I am trying not to come with too many fixed expectations. I want to stay open, listen and learn, and see where the programme takes me. I visited the school during Open House last year and immediately fell in love with the place and the physical environment. There is a special atmosphere here, and I really like the fact that students have their own workstations and the space to work and immerse themselves in their projects.
– I did my Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design here at Kolding School of Design, and I wanted to build further on the knowledge and experience I already had. That is why I decided to continue on to the Master’s programme and chose Design for Play. The playful approach feels very natural to the way I work. To me, play is partly about entering a process with curiosity, trying things out and allowing room for something unexpected to happen. I think play can open up new perspectives and take a project in directions you could not necessarily have planned in advance. I am really looking forward to exploring that in a more conscious and academic way – especially together with my fellow students, who bring different experiences, methods and ways of thinking.
