About

The following information is below:

• Curriculum Vitae. [Download as PDF.]

• Memberships.

• Editorial boards.

Curriculum Vitae Karel van der Waarde

Dutch national (Utrecht: October 9, 1963), married, living in Belgium since 1996.

a. Education:

1981-1986 - Academie voor Industriële Vormgeving Eindhoven (AIVE) (Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Now: The Design Academy): Department of product presentation. Pass with distinction 1986.

1986-1987 - Masters degree (MA), Information Design. Leicester Polytechnic (Leicester, UK. Now: De Montfort University): Pass with distinction 1987.

1989-1993 - Doctorate (PhD), Department of Typography & Graphic communication. Reading University (Reading, UK). Thesis: ‘An investigation into the suitability of the graphic presentation of patient package inserts’. Examiners: Prof. Dr. M. Twyman and Prof. Dr. J. Hartley.

b. Commercial activities:

1987-1989: Graphic design consultancy in co-operation with Gary Love MA, Leicester (UK).

1989-1994: Graphic design consultancy in Reading, combined with PhD-study.

1994- ... : Design and research consultancy in Belgium. Projects are mainly in the medical-pharmaceutical sector. Typical products are information for patients (Bayer Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Proctor & Gamble, Novo Nordisk, Genzyme, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Omnicare, Tibotec, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi Aventis, Quintiles, Centocor, Voisin Consulting, ...), information for doctors and pharmacists (Ministry of Health, Brussel; RIZIV/INAMI, Brussel), labelling (Baxter), and design of hospital protocols (KITTZ, Groningen).

Currently involved in the development of Visual Leaflets in collaboration with Beeldsluiter.nl.

Other projects are for example the development of user instructions for Philips, taxform analysis for the Dutch Taxoffice, readability research for the Open University Netherlands, information architecture for websites (Productschap Tuinbouw, the Hague, the Netherlands; BCFI/CBIP, Gent, Belgium).

2006 - 2013: Professor Visual Rhetoric (‘lector’) at Avans University of Applied Sciences. Area of study: the visual rhetoric of graphic design.

2014 - ... : Teaching a course at the Basel School of Design - FHNW (Switzerland), together with Dr Paloma Lopez Grüninger on ‘Research and Information Design’.

2017 - ... : Professor (adjunct) Visual Communication, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.

2020 - 2021 : Senior Lecturer Graphic Design, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK.

2021 - ... : Teaching a few courses on BA and MA level at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts - HSLU (Switzerland).

c. Academic activities:

• I published 99 articles in Dutch, English, Japanese, Spanish, and Polish.

• I spoke at 115 conferences.

• I edited an academic journal ‘Information Design Journal’ (2000-2004) in cooperation with Dr. Piet Westendorp (University of Delft).

• I teach at different institutes. (IIID-Summer School, Bath, UK; The Design Academy, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; Academy of Fine Arts (ASP), Krakow, Poland).

• I’m a Member of the organizational committee and/or scientific committee of conferences. [Some examples: DIA, London 2000; Brugge 2002 | Visual Forum, Eskilstuna 2000 | ICTVC, Thessaloniki and Cyprus (Greece) 2002, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022 | SBDI (Brazil), 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011 | LCEA09, London 2009 | Plain 2017 | IIID VisionPlus, 2023, 2024].

• Reviewing articles, editing texts, examining BA-MA-PhD students, accreditation committees, awards-judge, etc.

• I’m a board member of the International Plain Language Federation (IPLF) since 2023.

• I’m the IIID vice-president for Education and Research. In this role, I’m involved in the development of an ISO-standard on Plain Language. This standard was published in June 2023.

Member of the following organisations:

• Beroepsorganisatie Nederlandse Ontwerpers (BNO)
• Clarity - Plain Legal Language
• Communication Research Institute (CRI) - Life-Fellow since 2005
• Drug Information Association (DIA)
• Design Research Society (DRS)
• European Association of Communication in Health (EACH)
• International Institute for Information Design (IIID) – Board member since 2001
• Nederlandse Boekhistorische Vereniging (NBV)
• Printing Historical Society (PHS)
• Universal Workforce Institute (UWI) - Fellow since 2023
• Usability Professionals Association (UxPA)

Member of the following editorial boards:

• Hyphen (University of Nicosia)
• Information Design Journal (John Benjamins)
• Journal of Visual Political Communication (Intellect publishing)
• She Ji (Elsevier)
• Visible Language (University of Cincinnati)