Teaching

For the past nine years Joost Grootens has been teaching at Design Academy Eindhoven. He has also lectured and conducted workshops at various institutions in Europe, Asia and the United States. Recently he was appointed programme leader of the new research programme Information Design at Design Academy Eindhoven's Master course. The new department will start in September 2011.

RESEARCH PROGRAMME INFORMATION DESIGN
 
The research programme Information Design focuses on developing strategies, technologies, products and services for mapping and understanding an increasingly complex world. The aim is to teach students to intervene in this complex environment. The focus will lie on the increased role digital technology plays in society and in the field of design. The programme is not narrowed to a single design discipline. It will encompass graphic, interactive, as well as spatial research themes and design projects.
 
The world has become more complicated because the information describing it has grown exponentially in size and rate of circulation. The designer’s traditional tools for interpreting the world and intervening in it are no longer sufficient. The increased digitalisation of the information has diminished its transparency, which has changed not only the designer’s tools, but also his responsibility.
 
The research programme Information Design will focus on developing new design tools – both software and hardware. It will look at how to organise, visualise and translate data into analog or digital interfaces, and the programme will reflect on these new technologies in relation to the field of design.

Designers can play a new meaningful role in an increasingly complex world. For instance, as part of new collaborations with scientists, where they may contribute a different type of awareness to a process; as designers of the interface for complex systems; and as designers of new design tools. This new role is demanding on the designer’s expertise and his analytical, aesthetical and communicative skills. The Information Design research programme aims to develop these qualities and the reflection on new design themes.

Design Academy Eindhoven / Information Design [link]