Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Mark Henning has created a toolkit for testing and training the perfect handshake, which he imagines being used in an immigration office.
Henning's project, called Normaal, seeks to highlight how "abnormal" behaviour ? which could be something as simple as an unfamiliar social gesture ? can lead to suspicion and fear, particularly in societies where nationalism is on the rise.

To demonstrate this, he has created a table that incorporates a range of complex measurements and instruments. Using this, he is able to test whether an individual conforms to the accepted "normal".
"With the recent rise of populist politics our suspicions have become an arena for manipulation. Suspicion is often constructed in opposition to what we consider normal," explained the designer. "The project challenges our notions of what is normal by exploring one of the most standard and socially accepted gestures we know: the handshake."

The proportions of the table and the measuring devices on its surface are all based on the size of an average Dutch person. In this way, the table becomes a tool that could be used to both test or train someone who arrives in the country from abroad.
As well as creating the table, Henning has choreographed a short performance, during which he helps another person ? presumably an immigrant that has recently arrived in the Netherlands ? to perfect a normal handshake.
"The performance is f...