School of Design in Barcelona

IED Design is the school’s concrete and complete response to the countless and diversified requirements of the professional design community.

These days, design is a crucial constituent in every area of production, contributing contents, lexica, codes of expression and of form and technical and functional aspects.Street furnishings, fashion accessories, automobiles and IT hardware are just some of the fields where appreciation of the value of design has shot up in recent years.

The designer is by definition an innovator of forms and functions, an interpreter and at the same time a precursor of emerging aesthetic lines and of contemporary functional requirements.The courses at IED Design are tailored to develop these gifts, while at the same time favouring the acquisition of extensive technical and design skills in the course of workshops and numerous active partnerships with leading industrial concerns.

IED Design interprets the excellence of Italian design through a process of training whose roots are embedded in the culture of Made in Italy : creativity, entrepreneurial drive, technological innovation and familiarity with the market.

Ever alert to evolutions in taste and new trends, IED Design keeps one step ahead with its contents, languages and expressive and formal codes in all sorts of different sectors: from street furniture or cars to technological hardware or children’s toys. These courses are tailored for high-school leavers, young graduates and professionals who want to improve their skills.

Design school in Barcelona, Olla campus

IED Barcelona is housed in an old example of totally refurbished industrial archaeology, a building that used to be a chocolate factory in the neighbourhood of Gracia, one of the most characteristic and “alternative” areas in this eternally active, dynamic city.

The building covers an area of about 1,900 m², featuring a central block that now houses the lecture theatres and a related but independent structure used for cultural events, meetings, round tables and exhibitions open to the general public.

The campus also has two further 300 m² facilities, which are home to its media library, several laboratories, workshops and the IED Showcase space, where shows of the best work created by students alternate with those of design professionals.

The school’s strong links with the fabric of local enterprise and the distinctly international vocation, both of IED itself and of the host city, have naturally generated a special focus on new technologies as an element of connection and interchange with the professional world in Italy and the rest of Europe and the development of an eLearning platform as a tool for integrating and further exploring the activities undertaken in the classroom.