The Institut für Buchgestaltung (Institute of Book Design, IFB) was established at the Faculty for Design at the Technical College FH in 2006. Its activities focus on the research and promotion of books, book design, and on inter-disciplinary cooperation and joint ventures with publishers, enterprises, institutions, academies and universities.

The Institute was privatized in January 2014, and has since then been managed by Dirk Fütterer, Professor of Typography at the FH Bielefeld. Professor Fütterer is particularly interested in the functional and aesthetic development of analogue and digital reading media. MA students Clarissa Becker and Arne Vogt joined the IFB team in 2011. Their collaborative works focus on editorial design and typography in different media.

In the past eight years, the Institut für Buchgestaltung has successfully produced books and other publications in cooperation with different publishers, including Birkhäuser Verlag and Hatje Cantz. Books and publications of the institute have received various awards and mentions at important design competitions (including  ›The most beautiful German books‹, TDC Award New York, Red Dot Award, ADC Award, German Photo Book Prize and ›100 Best Posters‹).