This paper presents a method to create 3-dimensional blade geometries defined in terms of stacked profiles where each profile is described by four NURBS curves. The NURBS representations of the profiles are attractive since they can be exchanged with CAD/CAM systems and grid generators. The blade profiles are defined in terms of traditional design variables, e.g. maximum thickness and camber. A numerical optimisation loop is then used to adjust the basic parameters of the NURBS curves until the requested values of the traditional design variables are obtained. Normally the number of traditional design variables is less than the number of NURBS parametersI.t has therefore been necessaryt o define additional constraints that make the shape corresponding to a given set of traditional design variables unique.