Food and Eating Design

Even though designers are specifically trained to create and build new products, their contribution to food innovation is still relatively small. This is a pity, because providing people with good quality, healthy, and appetizing food products that are produced in a sustainable way, and that take into account local differences in consumption contexts, habits and rituals is quite a challenge. Furthermore, the regional, seasonal, and perishable character of foods challenges designers to find solutions that connect consumers with agriculture, trading, and processing methods. The food & eating design course makes design students aware of the different fields of knowledge that are relevant for designs in which foods play a major part. The emphasis of this course is on bringing design students in contact with the knowledge areas that are specific for food and are not part of their regular design curriculum.

 The course addresses: agricultural production, food technology, sensory perception and aesthetics, health issues, packaging, marketing, food culture, food systems, food industry.