Bachelor in Graphic Design

In our current communication landscape - where graphic design plays a large role in the organisation and transformation of messages - there are many opportunities for reassessing and experimenting with communicating through visual languages. The Graphic Design department is entering this context through offering instruction in core subjects that we consider to be valuable to a graphic design practice: editing, image, typography and theory, including specialist courses in drawing, web design, type design, writing, movement, and more. We are approaching this learning process through both analogue and digital techniques and conceptually and playfully.

Teaching in the department happens mostly through assignments. For these, our students are expected to analyse and address a question or issue and adopt a position towards it, while also exploring form in order to organise and communicate their ideas. Students are encouraged to practice widely and critically, and are challenged to reflect on what it means to communicate through their work.

The origins of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie can be traced back to three schools in 1924 to form the Instituut Voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs (Institute for Education in the Applied Arts), or Kunstnijverheidsschool (School of Applied Arts) for short. From 1939 to 1960, the study programme was heavily influenced by the functionalist and socio-critical ideas of De Stijl and the Bauhaus, partly thanks to the socialist architect Mart Stam's role, who was the director of the programme.

The Gerrit Rietveld Academie offers one Bachelor's programme and two Master's programmes. The full-time Bachelor's programme is made up of the Basic year and 12 specialisations. All students complete a general formative year before choosing one of these specialisations for in-depth study in one of the two specialisations. The academy also offers a part-time Bachelor's programme, DOGtime, with two specialisations. The Foundation Course of the part-time Bachelor's programme takes two years to complete and is followed by three years of in-depth study.