Max Bruinsma is an independent design critic, editor, curator, editorial designer and educator. He studied art-, architecture- and design history in Groningen and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since 1985, his critical writings have featured regularly in a range of Dutch and international design publications (a.o. Metropolis M, Mediamatic, Items, Eye, Idea, ID, Blueprint, Étappes, Form). In 1997, he succeeded founding editor Rick Poynor as editor-in-chief of Eye, the international review of graphic design, in London. He also was editor-in-chief of Items, the Dutch review of design. Bruinsma published and edited several books on (graphic and new media) design, and taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, St. Joost in Breda and HKU, Utrecht. In 2003 his book ‘Deep Sites, intelligent innovation in contemporary webdesign‘ was published by Thames & Hudson. In 2005, Bruinsma received the Pierre Bayle Prize for Design Criticism. He is currently teaching at Camera Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland and MIARD, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam.
Max Bruinsma’s shortest definition of the design profession is: “Designers are cultural catalysts“.