Industrial Design BA
Create impact on life and experience in an ever-changing society by becoming an industrial designer. Aesthetics, utility, materiality, emotional impact, readability, formal value: the design of industrial goods is based on the knowledge and expertise of a wide range of disciplines. In view of playing an active part as a designer in our rapidly changing lifeworld, the BA course at the Institute of Industrial Design provides you with competence in your own subject field and substantial knowledge and practice in adjacent areas. In the first year of your studies (Basic Study) you are taught the conceptual, methodological and hands-on basic skills required in the creative, problem-focused design process, as a foundation to your own future independent and critical design work. You also learn how to display and communicate core elements of the design process, for example, in the shape of drawings, models and virtual simulations. The Main Studies Course centres, above all, on in-depth project work in the context of the freely selectable focus projects “Introduction, Practice, and Vision”. These modules are of varying length and complexity. Upon attaining your BA degree you have the competence and skills to work for a design department of a large company, for independent design studios or set up your own creative business.
Key data
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts FHNW
- ECTS points
- 180
- Start of semester
- September (week 38)
- Next start
- Mon. 16.09.2024 | Fall Semester (Details see dates)
- Final application date
- Thu, 15.2.2024
- Studying mode
- fulltime
- Duration
- 6 semester
- Teaching language
- German (B2 or equivalent)
- Place
- Basel
- Stay abroad
- possible
- Application fee
- CHF 200.- (incl. aptitude assessment and enrolment)
- Semester fee
- CHF 700 (CH); CHF 1.000 (EU); CHF 1.250 (Not-EU/EFTA) Fees detail
Information on admission, aptitude assessment and admission to the study programme
Information on programme contents
Organizational matters

Institute Contemporary Design Practices (ICDP)
We move between the material and the immaterial, two poles that define the field of industrial design at present.
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