The MAK Design Info Pool (dip) is a virtual collection and presentation platform for 20th and 21st century Austrian design, which covers all aspects of craft-centered, industrial, or artistic design production in Austria. To give a comprehensive picture of Austrian design production and its exponents, the pool includes renowned and present-day design positions as well as the MAK-specific crossing of design, architecture, and art. Another goal of the documentation work is to invite experts on different design epochs as commentators to analyze and evaluate definite key works of Austrian design from the collection from the end of the Wiener Werkstätte in 1932 until today.

Established 1990, the MAK Design-Info-Pool is not only a communicator and exchange hub, but, since 2000, has also been a special segment of the museum’s collection, which tries to give traditional collecting activities an adequate form in a virtual context—beyond the physical compilation of selected objects—so as to facilitate a genuinely contemporary access to the material.

Since 1994, new techniques of museum presentation and education have been put to test in order to optimize information processing and visualization standards. The search engine developed by MAK-DIP meets the need of both specialized research and general public interest.

Designers, architects, and artists participating are given an opportunity of publishing design information and updating their portfolios online–in dialogue with the MAK. Currently more than 5,000 design projects by 1,200 creators and 670 design producers are entered in the data base; 60 percent of them with detailed descriptions and comments by jurors, curators, and critics and about 1,100 projects with up to nine national and international awards. On an average, the Design Info Pool has 5,000 to 6,000 visitors per month.

Due to a system changeover, the virtual design collection MAK dip is currently offline. We apologize for any inconvenience.

From the exhibition series DesignShowcases©, which presented—in dynamic succession and in different sites at the MAK—selected designers and design studios, numerous design objects could be entered into the collection. Between 2001 and 2008, more than 30 exhibitions were shown which had been developed out of the collection.