Design School Kolding is an internationally acclaimed design university located in Denmark.

We offer high quality BA, MA and PhD Degree Programmes with teaching based on innovative practice and research in close collaboration with the business community.

We also offer postgraduate courses and consultancy services. Although the institution is quite small, with only 400 students enrolled per year, it is an internationally acclaimed design university where students work with tools, techniques, concepts and methods in an international academic setting and enjoy easy access to excellent workshop facilities.

Design for People, Planet, Play



We believe that the overall objective of any university should be to generate and transfer knowledge in ways that create value at many different levels of society.

Our knowledge thus intends to reinforce the fields of Industrial Design, Fashion Design, Textile Design, Accessory Design and Communication Design in a societal context by focusing on three strategic areas that we refer to as Design for People, Design for Planet, and Design for Play.

This means we dedicate our MA Programme and our research and development activities to issues of sustainability, social design and play.

Reciprocity and Partnerships



Design School Kolding maintains and develops numerous collaborative efforts and partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, including our local government.

Since 2012, Kolding Municipality has been implementing a long-term design strategy, and in 2017, Kolding became the first Scandinavian city to call itself UNESCO Design City. Design School Kolding has been along for the whole ride and is still a partner when it comes to launching new design initiatives.

We work hard to tear down the division between research and education and between education and business development. We do so by having an internal organisation that supports cross collaboration and that sustains the nexus between knowledge production and teaching, and by setting up partnership agreements with institutions and businesses.

By engaging in regional, national and international activities, we always focus on our main objective, which is to design for the public good. We have established collaborations with esteemed universities such as Tongji and Aalto and ambitious innovators such as ECCO, the LEGO Foundation, NASA and many more. Public welfare institutions such as hospitals, local governments and prison facilities are also familiar collaborators.

The nature of the collaborations varies from art-based development projects where designers respond to challenges or briefs and offer consultancy, to scientific research and teaching also involving long-term development projects. Indeed, collaborations represent a cornerstone of the teaching, and students will easily find themselves working with real cases together with high-profile international companies. This allows them, even as students, to receive international recognition, valuable feedback and work with design that has a meaningful purpose, making the transition to the job market and exciting international settings much easier.

Our MA Programme concludes with a Master project in collaboration with a private or public company or organisation of the student’s choice.


The team taking part in the FUTE project are: