Open Design minor WdKA

Dutch designers play a special role internationally. This not only due to the both conceptual and functional character of Dutch Design, but also a result of the design practice at the leading Dutch design academies. ‘Open design principles’ are not common practice in design education yet. But thanks to the publication of the book Open Design Now, we noticed an interesting ‘side effect’: academies are gratefuly using the book as educational material.

In 2012 a collaboration with the Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) in Rotterdam developed and realized an Open Design Minor. The target was to give open design principles a place in the forming of designers. Creative Commons NL together with Waag have further developed an educational programme in Open Design to secure a structural space for the use of CC-licenses within (higher) education. In 2013, the first students of WdKA enrolled in the new minor. The educational material is made available under a Creative Commons license to ensure that the minor can be used at any place. 

With the minor Waag, Creative Commons NL and WdKA introduce a new design platform for art and design education. Questions of fundamental importance for future of the design landscape in the minor are: What means authorship within Open Design? How to apply digital fabrication techniques and methods to your design. What does it mean to involve users in the design process? How can we learn from design platforms like Open Design Contest, OpenIDEO or Nervous System?

This project has been made possible by a subsidy of the Fund Creative Industries NL.