Your Master Studies at the HfG

The master program Stra­tegic Design is conse­cu­tive. The study program will be a good fit for you if you have already completed a univer­sity program (Bachelor, certi­fi­ca­tion, or other similar degree) as a desi­gner, or in subjects related to media. In your bachelor studies, you should have earned 210 ECTS credits. For bachelor graduates from six-semester programs with 180 ECTS credits, they will have the possi­bi­lity to make up the missing ECTS credits through parti­ci­pa­ting in events and projects at the univer­sity before starting their first semester of the master.

We accept new students twice a year in all degree programs. You must register and apply via our online appli­ca­tion portal by May 15^th or November 15^th (cut-off dead­line). Please have the follo­wing docu­ments ready in digital form for your application:

• CV
• Offi­cial copy of your Univer­sity Entrance Qualification
• Offi­cial copy of your profes­sio­nally quali­fying Univer­sity Diploma
• Deregistration/​Proof of comple­ting your studies/​Transcript of Records
• Pass­port photo
• Proof of voca­tional educa­tion, career or intern­ship
• Your project sketches
• Chosen work samples
• Optional letter of moti­va­tion (approx. 1 DIN A4 page)
  

If you are applying with a foreign univer­sity diploma, we will need the follo­wing addi­tional documents:

• Proof of German profi­ci­ency (TestDaF 4/DSH 2)
• Reco­gni­tion of your univer­sity entrance quali­fi­ca­tion or career-related diploma through the Studi­en­kolleg Konstanz
• Appli­cants from China: certi­fi­cate from the academic veri­fying autho­rity (APS) from the Cultural Depart­ment of the German embassy in Peking

With your appli­ca­tion in the online portal, you should also submit a project outline. This should be around 2 – 3 pages, a maximum of 500 words and can include pictures.

For this, choose a problem related to society that you would like to solve or address with the help of a design project. Prepare an accom­panying project outline with contents that meet scien­tific stan­dards. The chosen topic is only rele­vant for your appli­ca­tion and is not required to be the topic of your master thesis. If you are applying for the second time, we ask you to please prepare a new project outline.

Goals
Explain the concept, the content, and design, scien­tific, or tech­nical goals of the project. Name concrete appli­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties like poten­tial uses, func­tion­a­lity, and target audiences.

Methods
Present which design or scien­tific methods you would use, and justify them with regard to your solu­tion to the problem. 

Content/​Formal Imple­men­ta­tion
Describe the planned or poten­tial result of the product or project, espe­ci­ally the content and formal results. 

Literature/​Sources
Attach a works cited page to your outline to list all sources (lite­ra­tures and/​or online sources) that you used for the project outline.

Addi­tio­nally, we would like to see some of your previous design work. The PDF docu­ment with your work samples should be no more than ten pages and 20 MB.

Please note: we will review the work via a digital screen, so please opti­mize your content accor­dingly. The work sample will not be printed out, so we do not need an addi­tional printed port­folio sent via post.

The selec­tion inter­view is the second part of the selec­tion process. If you are admitted to the selec­tion inter­view, you will receive an invi­ta­tion at least seven days in advance. The inter­views will take place on Monday and Tuesday, June 17^th and 18^th in Schwä­bisch Gmünd.

You can use this link to register on the univer­si­ty’s own portal during the appli­ca­tion phase and then apply for a degree program of your choice. The appli­ca­tion phases are always from the begin­ning of April to mid-May and from the begin­ning of October to mid-November.

Note: Due to known problems, we do not recom­mend using the​„Safari“ browser for registration.

Online Application Portal

We will publish your results as soon as possible in the portal. The semester will begin in the first week of October or middle of March, depen­ding on the semester.