OPEN STUDIO WS26

Semester overview

Combining this with the other courses

The workshops are one of six blocks from which you put your semester together. How that works is described under structure.

About the course

The Open Studio is where your projects take shape. It is not a seminar with a programme but a shared working space: you work on your projects, I am there, we talk. Sometimes one on one, sometimes as a group, sometimes over your shoulder.

These are shared working days. We experiment, work alongside each other, ask questions, show work in progress and watch what the others are doing. What happens here depends on what you bring.

Every session opens with Information Design in the Wild.

Topics and projects

You choose your own topic, as long as it sits within information design. That openness is deliberate. You should find your own language, your own approach, your own style and your own methods. Whether you work artistically, investigatively or journalistically is your decision. The course is built so that you develop these methods through working, learning as much from each other as from me. You may work alone or in groups.

Information Design in the Wild

We share information design projects we have come across — good ones, bad ones, strange ones. Collected in the course's Element chat, discussed at the start of every Open Studio. This is not a presentation and needs no preparation. A screenshot, a link, a photo from a newspaper is enough. The point is to develop an eye for the field we are working in.

Project presentations

Three presentations structure the semester. Each runs across all three days of that week, and each has a different focus: the first thinks, the second builds, the third reflects.

Presentation 01: Concept, moodboard & references

Week 46, 10–13 November 2026 — 10 minutes, followed by questions and discussion

You present your concept (or several). Why does this subject matter? How do you intend to work on it? Who has worked on it before? Which technologies are you considering? Which data or information do you want to use? What problems might come up?

You can show one clear idea or lay out several possible directions side by side. By the end of this week everyone should have a clear sense of their own project.

Presentation 02: Project presentation

Week 50, 8–11 December 2026 — 10 minutes, followed by questions and discussion

Show what you are building. Which tools are you using, and what exactly does each of them do? Where does your data come from, how is it prepared? In which format will the work finally appear: print, screen, space, film? What already works, what does not yet?

After this session everything needed to build the final project should be settled: concept, data, information, formats. What follows is execution.

Presentation 03: Examination week

Week 5, 2–5 February 2027

The final presentation. The project is finished.

Tell it as an arc: from the question of why the subject matters to what you concretely made. Your process lies in between: the decisions, the detours, the things you discarded. This is not only about showing a result but about reflecting on your own part in it: What did you learn? Where did the work move beyond your original intention? What would you do differently today?

The length depends on the size of the group and will be announced in good time.

Submission

9 ECTS credits

• Project description (500–800 words): what it is about, what question the work asks, what it shows.
• Technical description: what the work is built with. Data sources, tools, procedures — precise enough to make clear how it came about.
• Photo or video documentation: the finished work, in good quality.
• Reflection on the concept: what the intention was, what came of it, where the two diverge.

18 ECTS credits

In addition:

• Academic and theoretical paper (approx. 5 pages)
  • Derivation: where does the question come from, what context does it sit in?
  • Citations in a consistent style
  • References from art, design and research: placed and discussed, not merely listed
• Extended Media Content (e.g., for social media, your own website, a book, posters, etc.)

Assessment

The project is assessed as a whole: topic and question, concept and method, design quality, the relationship between concept and form, your own position, your handling of references, your reflection and the result.

These criteria are set out in full under assessment criteria. They are written for final theses; for semester projects they apply in the same spirit but less strictly — there are no written evaluations.

Online office hours

In the weeks between sessions I offer individual 15 minute slots. Book at cal.com/kimfa/15min.

Attendance

I do not keep an attendance list. You are welcome at every session, including those you are not enrolled in.