Aart van Bezooijen is a Dutch industrial designer with an obsession for materials. His path has, therefore, always been material orientated starting with a materials selection support tool for designers — the Material Explorer — which was included in his Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Delft University of Technology (2002) and nominated by the Danish INDEX: Design To Improve Life organization.

Truthful to the Dutch’s conceptual approach to design, Aart started working as a design consultant at PARK Advanced Design Management in 2003 and in 2005 decided to fully focus on his passion by driving the launch of Material Explorer with the support of Materia (MaterialDistrict). He then founded Material Stories in Hamburg, offering services that would bridge the gap between the materials industry and the world of design.

Ever so often, he reports about European material and design events on publications such as Core77 Design Network, among others. With Hands-on Materials Education he documents his collaborative projects (2012–2020) and establishing of a Material Collection at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Germany.

Since 2021, Aart works as Associate Professor at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano exploring the future of materials and making through hands-on education, interdisciplinary research and participatory events and at the Faculty of Design and Art.