Unbound Trajectories

Photo: Unbound Trajectories

Founder Unbound Trajectories
Designer, researcher, strategist,
educator, and coach

Evert Ypma MFA, MAS, is a designer, design researcher, and conceptual strategist working at the intersection of institutional leadership, public value and transformation. He collaborates with public institutions, scientific and educational organisations, cultural institutions and companies where strategy, governance and societal change converge.

His work is about reading organisational complexity, framing underlying questions from different angles and discerning priorities. He translates these into design strategies and actions enabling organisations to understand themselves, exercise responsibility and shape their futures. By doing so, he supports organisations being more legible, more accountable and better equipped for the changing conditions ahead.
Evert Ypma is interested in the point where institutions become brittle, and where design can open inspiring, intelligent and effective ways forward – an approach which is grounded in a strong sense of agency.

Across higher education, research, and consultancy, he has led pioneering programmes, teams and collaborations at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the Zurich University of the Arts, Unbound Trajectories and precedent offices. His experience ranges from curriculum development and research environments to design-driven transformation projects. He moves fluently between making and thinking, operational detail, strategy and conceptual direction.

Leading for his work is a distinct understanding of design: design as a social, civic and intellectual practice giving form to the material and immaterial world around us. One that amalgamates critical insight, future scenarios and strategic deliberation. He engages with emerging questions, including civic trust, the design of public institutions, representation and image politics, agentic systems, and design for circular economy. Throughout his career, Evert Ypma has focused on the conditions that enable design and designers to achieve genuine social relevance.

Shaping credible futures
by designing them

Areas of expertise

Design and strategic management
Strategic creativity
Foresight and design-driven innovation
Organisational identity and culture
Positioning and representation

Service design
Digital service design
Virtual and spatial knowledge environments

Public design
Social design, Participative design
Urban cultures
Design and trust

Visual communication
Visual culture, Digital image practices, Post-photography
Transmedia storytelling
Digital transformation, Digital humanities

Design politics
Design cultures, Design anthropology, Design sociology
Transdisciplinary design methods
Design research

Academic engagements
Zürich University of the Arts
Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Basel Academy of Art and Design (FHNW)
School of Design and Society, University of Technology Sydney
City Science Lab, HafenCity University Hamburg
Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD)
Bauhaus Kolleg (Dessau)
ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design (Arnhem)
AA Architectural Association, Global School Dubrovnik
Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture (Helsinki)
Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB)
Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) ETH Zürich
Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities, Bern University
Novia Applied University (Vaasa)
Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam)
Journal of Communication Design (Routledge Taylor & Francis)
Zurich University

Education
Evert Ypma has studied design at the Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam (BA), at the Academy Post-St. Joost Breda (MFA), and design and management at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northern-Switzerland, Basel/Olten (MAS).