The following degree programs will be offered:

School of Art
Bachelor of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts

School of Design
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts

In the winter semester of 2022/23, the old diploma program was replaced by Bachelor/Master programs.

No, since 2022, the Allgemeine Hochschulreife and the Fachhochschulreife are equivalent for application to the HfG.

The portfolio advisory service is open to everyone and free of charge.

Department of Art:

• alternately in presence and virtually, see list of dates (link).
• Mid-October to mid-July
• Wednesdays at 12 noon, (or individually by prior arrangement)

Department of Design:

• online
• Dates and Links here
  Wednesday, 12 noon (MA), 1 p.m. (BA)

If you have questions about the admission process, you can contact the respective admission committees for art and design directly. They will also advise you on administrative matters and, in cooperation with the deans of studies, e.g. on the recognition of previous achievements:

Department of Art
Silke Willig, willig@hfg-offenbach.de

Department of Design
Elvira Werner, werner@hfg-offenbach.de

In the subject and portfolio advising, lecturers and students of the respective department advise primarily on the artistic/design level of the admission process, in particular on your portfolio. You can reach the student advising teams at:

Department of Art
studienberatungkunst@hfg-offenbach.de

Department of Design studienberatungdesign@hfg-offenbach.de

The links to the weekly portfolio consultation during the application phase can be found here (Art) and here (Design).

For all other questions, such as application requirements for German and international/non-German students and admission, please contact the

Student Administration Office
studieninfo@hfg-offenbach.de

Department of Art
Yvonne Truber, 069.800 59-200

Department of Design
Christiane Kühn-Wilkens, 069.800 59-150

In 2025, the submission of the portfolio will again be done online. The corresponding links will be activated on 10.05.

Art here
The entrance examinations and interviews will take place in person at the end of June/beginning of July; you will find the exact dates here shortly

Design here
The entrance examinations and interviews will take place in person at the end of June/beginning of July; you will find the exact dates here shortly

Submission of portfolio online
10. – 25.05.

Entrance exam and interviews every year at the end of June/beginning of August

All information on the contents of the portfolios/portfolios and other application materials at:

Art here

Design here

Art

Bachelor of Fine Arts
Explain your reasons for wanting to study art (max. 1 DIN-A4 page).

Master of Fine Arts
Letter of motivation, if applicable, stating your interests in major fields of study and/or a Master’s project. Please state whether and, if so, what your motivation is for wanting to study in the variant with a greater theoretical component.

Design

Bachelor of Arts
Explain your motivation for wanting to study design (max. 1 DIN-A4 page).

Master of Arts
In a detailed letter of motivation, you explain your personal goals and interests in design and describe and justify your self-chosen and planned MA topic.

As an alternative to the work portfolio, the Department of Design offers the opportunity to apply with an independently completed assignment on design aptitude. You can request the assignment at kuehn-wilkens@hfg-offenbach.de (only possible for applicants with a university entrance qualification). The assignment can be requested immediately and will be sent out on 14.04.2025. The latest submission deadline is 25.05.2025. There is no such assignment at the Department of Art.

The prerequisite for a master’s degree in art or design is proof of your artistic-creative or outstanding artistic-creative aptitude. In addition, you need a domestic or foreign university degree (bachelor’s/diploma) in art or design or another equivalent degree, which should generally comprise at least 210 CP.

Exception
You can also apply with 180 CP and/or with a degree from another field, if necessary the study will then be extended. In justified exceptional cases, admission can also be granted if the aptitude required for the study program has been acquired in a profession instead of a university degree. In this case, you must be able to prove that you have worked for approximately three years in an occupation that is sufficiently related to the content of the master’s degree program and, in particular, that you have acquired knowledge and skills that are relevant to the degree program.

No. You upload your documents together with your portfolio to the application links of the HfG. Your documents will be checked during the admission process.

If the review of your submitted documents and the result of the entrance examination shows that you must first attend a Studienkolleg, the HfG will enroll you at the Studienkolleg in Frankfurt.

You usually have to take the G course.

Certificates must be submitted as certified copies and officially translated into German or English.

The aptitude tests for the individual degree programs are independent of each other. Anyone who has already been admitted to the diploma must reapply for the bachelor’s or master’s degree. Conversely, anyone can apply twice for a bachelor’s or master’s degree, even if they have already applied once or twice unsuccessfully for a diploma.

At the HfG as a university of art there is no fixed number of study places. However, here you can find some figures on applications and enrollments from the last admission procedure.

Yes, this is possible in principle if one or two lecturers at the HfG support the application for a guest student. Interested students must make their own efforts to establish contact by writing to the relevant lecturers.

As a rule, the language of instruction is German. By arrangement, the teachers also hold some of their courses in English. The theory courses, however, are in German without exception.

You must provide proof of DSH-2, TestDAF-4, the “telc Deutsch C1 Hochschule” certificate or the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 by September 15 at the latest. You must provide proof of language level B2 by the end of the application deadline (June 1st). There will be no entrance examination without proof of B2 and no enrolment in October without proof of C1. Take care of the relevant language courses and exam dates in good time. If you are unable to provide proof of sufficient German language skills by September 15, you may be able to start your studies in the winter semester of the following year. After that, you will have to take the aptitude test again.

Proof of German language proficiency level B2 must also be provided for the Master’s degree by June 1st. If you can only provide proof of German language skills at level B2 for the MFA Art or MA Design degree program, you will need additional proof of English language skills at level C 1 by 15 September at the latest (through a current TOEFL test, a current IELTS test – both must not be older than two years – or the Cambridge Certificate C1). The admissions committee may also recognize equivalent proof such as a degree in English.

Yes, for educational certificates from China, Vietnam and India

It is not mandatory that your application is written in German. If it is not in German, then it should be in English.

All study programs
As soon as you have submitted your application, the admissions committee will review your portfolio and, if necessary, invite you to take the entrance exam. We will contact you by e-mail approximately three weeks after the deadline.

Additionally for Master of Fine Arts Art
You can arrange an orientation interview: If you are admitted to the further admission procedure, you can have an orientation interview with a professor from the Department of Fine Arts. To do this, you should contact the professor who represents the teaching area you are interested in for your Master’s degree and Master’s project. If you have not yet determined a focus of interest for the Master’s program and are interested in an orientation interview, the admissions committee will suggest a person for the orientation interview on the basis of your letter of motivation. The professor can make a recommendation to the admission committee on the basis of the orientation interview, which can be positively considered in the admission decision.

You can apply every year from 10.05. for a course of study for the winter semester. To do so, you must submit a design portfolio between 10 and 25 May.

Submission of portfolio online
10. – 25.05.

Entrance examination and interview
ART
The entrance examinations and interviews will take place in person at the end of June/beginning of July; you will find the exact dates here shortly

DESIGN
The entrance examinations and interviews will take place in person at the end of June/beginning of July; you will find the exact dates here shortly

.

The qualifying examination is valid in the year of the admission procedure and the following year. Therefore, if you do not begin your studies after admission, you can still enroll in the winter semester of the following year. After that, a new application is required.

By the end of the application deadline (June 1), you must provide proof of language level B2 in German. Your C1 language level must be submitted by September 15. Important: If you have not submitted proof of language level B2 in German by June 1, you will not be admitted to the further admission procedure. If you do not provide proof of sufficient German language skills (C1) by September 15, you will not be admitted to the course despite passing the entrance exam. Take care of the appropriate language courses and exam dates in good time.

Since there are currently no tuition fees in Hesse, you will only have to pay the semester fee. More information here.

There are no tuition fees to pay in Hesse. See above.

In principle, your Bachelor’s degree is eligible for funding if you do not yet have another first degree (Bachelor’s, Diplom, Staatsexamen, Magister).
Your Master’s degree is eligible for funding if you only have a Bachelor’s degree so far, i.e. funding for a Master’s degree is not available if you have previously obtained a Diplom, a Staatsexamen or a Magister. A second Master’s degree after a first Master’s degree is considered a second degree, even if the subjects are different, and is therefore also not eligible for funding.
Transferring from a current diploma program to the new bachelor’s and master’s degree programs is primarily an option for students who already have a bachelor’s degree and are at the beginning of their diploma program. They could be eligible for BAföG again by changing to the master’s program, insofar as with a bachelor’s degree the master’s program, unlike the diploma program, is not considered a second degree. Please note the age limit for BAföG, which is 45 years since 2022.
This general information is non-binding and does not prejudge the individual funding decision. For more information, click here.

In ART/DESIGN you can choose and combine seminars from the following teaching areas:

• Sculpture
• Stage design/scenic space
• Electronic media
• Experimental space concepts
• Fashion
• Film
• Photography
• Graphic Design, Illustration
• Typography
• Communication design
• Conceptual drawing and nude drawing
• Painting
• Performance in the extended field

In THEORY/SCIENCE, there are required and elective courses in the following curricular areas:

• Art history
• Philosophy and aesthetics
• Media theory

In the BA Design there are compulsory and elective courses in the following teaching areas; in the MA Design seminars can be chosen and combined from the following teaching areas:

DESIGN

• Digital Design
• Industrial Design
• Information Design
• Integrative Design
• Material Design
• Urban Design

THEORY

• Theories of Culture and Technology
• Design theory
• Theory of perception
• Product language

Specialization takes place primarily in the second half of the Bachelor’s program. At the beginning of the studies, there will be an orientation event that will provide information.

Dual enrollment is possible from the HfG, however, the other university may exclude it. In this case, the studies at the HfG can be interrupted (see enrollment statutes) or a semester of leave at the HfG can be applied for.

If you have questions about the admission process, you can contact the respective admission committees for art and design directly. They will also advise you on administrative matters and, in cooperation with the deans of studies, e.g. on the recognition of previous achievements:

Department of Art
Silke Willig, willig@hfg-offenbach.de

Department of Design
Elvira Werner, werner@hfg-offenbach.de

For all other questions, such as application requirements for German and international/non-German students and admission, please contact the

Student Administration Office
studieninfo@hfg-offenbach.de

In the subject and portfolio advising, lecturers and students of the respective department advise primarily on the artistic/design level of the admission process, in particular on your portfolio. You can reach the student advising teams at:

Department of Art mappenberatungkunst@hfg-offenbach.de

Department of Design studienberatungdesign@hfg-offenbach.de

The links to the weekly portfolio consultation during the application phase can be found here (Art) and here (Design).

If you are studying at a foreign university and have questions about exchange studies at the HfG, please contact the:

International Office
team.internationales@hfg-offenbach.de

If you are studying at a foreign university and would like to transfer to the HfG for your degree, please contact the:

Student Information Center/Student Secretariat
studieninfo@hfg-offenbach.de