IN PROCESS

Loud typography. Forms that have nothing to do with the concept of furniture but that still invite one to sit on them. A garment shoulder so exaggerated that the look seems about to tip over. At Beckmans College of Design, with its three BA programmes of Fashion, Product and Interior Design, and Visual Communication, almost anything can happen.

The bachelor programmes, which encompass three years of study (180 university credits), rest basically on the same foundation and values as when the college started in 1939. This means that the design courses have an artistic foundation. Experimentation and playfulness are important, as is an open-minded approach. Process forms a constant aspect of the programmes. Being in a state of process is never a matter of proceeding in a straight line from START to GOAL. The process involves a constant reorientation during which one can meander backwards and forwards. As a student at Beckmans College of Design one is, of course, never alone during this process. For one is surrounded by fellow students, practice-oriented lecturers and the study programme itself in the form of courses and goals.

Without design and the process that leads on to everything from a communal sofa for wheelchair users, a deconstructed fashion classic and communication that is calming (and who does not long for something like that at times), we would dissolve. A society totally lacking in form or function (which do not have to be linked to each other) cannot be read. Indeed, it would be incomprehensible in a way that has best been described by Franz Kafka in his novel The Trial (1925).

The learning process at Beckmans College of Design involves both expectations and requirements, on a personal as well as a social level. Studying at Beckmans means time and time again – via practice, theory, context, meetings and ideas – asserting the relevance of design.

Karina Ericsson Wärn
Principal
Beckmans College of Design