HFG – Germany

The Academy of Design Offenbach has been a college of art and design with university status since 1970, though it goes back as far as the year 1832. What makes our college different from other colleges of art and design is its highly open approach: the fine arts, media studies and applied design are accorded the same degree of importance in terms of teaching and integrative development. An important factor in this is the interaction of theory and design, experiment and product as well as new and old techniques in image production. The promotion of communicative intelligence is just as much one of our aims as is acquiring an emotional, sensuous level of maturity. The concept of reality in art, design and the media has been highly influenced by developments in cross-medial and cross-cultural convergences. This is reflected in our course structures. We aim to train artists and designers to enable them to master professional demands that are constantly changing. The degree course offers a choice of five different final examination topics: art, communication design, media studies, stage design [Dept. of Visual Communication] and product design [ibid.].
Additionally, the college offers a one-year (2-semester), project-oriented postgraduate course.