Product Design
Start date: January 2014 | Duration: 12 Months - Full Time | Language: EnglishBy being an environment made up of companies of all levels, the Italian Design System is the best opportunity for professionals from all over the world to express their innovation freely 'cause it resumes everyday different requests to experiment new methodologies. By being an integral part of this system, the designer has the chance to cooperate both with big companies being involved in a process strictly connected to real life trend and competition market, and with small-medium concern companies, real core of italian economy. The Master allows students to analyse thoroughly different project fields: product design for large scale and medium concern businesses, packaging design, furniture design and self-production products design.
Target
The Master is the right specialisation for italian and foreign graduates from universities and university-level schools in Design, Architecture and similar fields and for professionals with experience in the area.
This Master course in Product Design study programme gives students the possibility to work with different production systems, high hint to create unique concepts, fundamental to satisfy the market demand everyday more careful to environmental factors, and created according to the need of new languages and sign research.
After a first cultural grounding, students can choose among four design-areas:
1. packaging
2. product
3. furniture
4. self-productionThe plan of studies offers a first part of cultural subjects which will be the base on which they will develop the following projects.
During the second part of the Master Course in Product Design, students have the chance to shape their own curricula choosing between a linear career dealing with one of the project fields (packaging, product, furniture, self production) and a cross-career where the four areas interact.
The curriculum provides also two workshops where students improve their abilities according to the programme chosen and contaminate their experience with details about Italian Design Culture.
Then, during the third and last part of the Master Course in Product Design, students develop a final thesis project with a partner company. This has aimed to create autonomous professionals on the cultural side and the projectual side able to face different professional assignments.
Moreover the Master Course in Product Design offers conferences held by personalities from all main Design fields. In relation to the course contents and training objectives, internships may be organized with firms.
Big news for the Master in Product Design is the collaboration with Continuum, one of the most innovative and interesting international design studios. Continuum will be in charge of coordinating the Master Course.
The intervention of Continuum offers a fundamental contribution in preparing students towards a professional world which is continuously evolving from designing for people to designing with people.Teachings
- Cultural Lab Workshops
- They are cross-disciplinary workshops addressed to all Master courses of the School of Design and take place at the beginning of each Master course. They have different objectives such as: regenerating the project cultures of the participants, influencing the different cultures with the Italian design, developing technical, technological, cultural and lingui- stic subjects. They are structured to allow students to start outlining their own pathway and include the realization of a theme research.
- Lightech Lab
- As the light is one of the subjects that are rarely dealt during the degree courses, this lab aims at giving the technical and expressive knowled- ge concerning the light technologies, the new technologies of the light control, and the usage of the artificial and natural light. The experience is developed in the light lab of the School equipped with the most sophi- sticated technologies.
- Ecotech Lab
- It is a lab aimed at teaching the new material limits with reference to the product design and the interior design by paying particular attention to the environmental issues. It deals with knowledge, research and analy- sis of the sensorial characteristics of materials, surface finishing, emo- tional feedbacks and chromatic ranges. Moreover, the areas concerning the materials deriving from recycling, the recomposed materials, and the ecological production processes will be developed in collaboration with specialized agencies.
- Strategy Lab
- One of the strategic assets of the School includes the training of a pro- duct designers able to relate also with the economical system by inter- preting its needs and its values as well as the customer positioning with reference to the market. He has to be able to interpret a project brief, to analyze the brand values of the customer and to sense the market chan- ges; or to interpret the companies seen from outside in order to propo- se them the right projects; or to analyze the market in order to find the fields where he can introduce his product. Finally, the summary of all these factors will be added to the project choices.
- Language Lab
- One of the most important objectives of the Master course is the perso- nal research of the expressive language. In history, the most important designers stand out thanks to their works characterized by a univocal and personal expressive code. This lab, together with the projects, en- courages the student to search for a very different personal architectu- ral language.
- Communication Lab
- The communication lab aims at training the students so that they can properly present their projects to the customer and to the market. It is a complex and strategic activity on which the success of a project depen- ds. The lab is divided as follows: organization of a presentation through a story-board referred to a clear and well-structure graphic project; defi- nition of all tools supporting the story; oral presentation at professional level.
- Cross-disciplinary Influences
- In order to support the language knowledge, cross-disciplinary mee- tings are organized in collaboration with the Master course of the other IED Schools in order to provide students with a complete overview.
- Territorial Influences
- The course organizes visits to companies belonging to the Italian de- sign system in order to closely know the products in the catalogue and the relevant communication strategies; visits to production sites whe- re it is possible to observe the production processes; visits to cultural places that can stimulate the personal cultural growth; participation in brand or product events to discover communication and market stra- tegies.
- Project Workshops
- Once the students have chosen the project pathway among those offe- red by the Master course and with the advice of their coordinator, they tackle the workshop project. These are projects simulating a real profes- sional situation where a brief is given to the student or it is defined by the students themselves to which they have to give a project answer by using the learnt expressive tools. The pathway is organized according to the classic structure of a project, i.e. a preliminary research step on the brief, the following analysis and outline, the definition of the con- cept. In this last step, the students are asked to properly use their skills in order to realize an innovative and expressive project.
- Final Project
- It is the final project of the Master course. The student has to choose a professional project together with a company or to select a commo- dity sector on which the project has to be based. The project pathway corresponds to the workshop project one, however it requires that the project is developed and expanded at a high-quality level. During the development and the final presentation, the students - supported by their teachers - tackle the company or the market as if they were dealing with a real professional work since they are able to compare the diffe- rent project aspects.
- Cultural Lab Workshops
Federico (chicco) Ferretti - Master Course's Coordinator
Federico is happiest where intuition, business and technology intersect. He believes that the best design is the one that dis- solves into behaviors and that questions are often longer-lasting than answers. During his tenure at Continuum, Chicco has played a key role in leading both tactical and strategic innovation programs helping to wrap business scenarios around people?s desires and dreams. He had excelled in the creation of innovative and meaningful concept, products and services solutions for different international clients such as Allsteel, BIC, GM, Motorola, NEC, Orange, 3M, Pirelli, Philips, Sennheiser and Samsung. Prior to re-joining Continuum, Federico co-founded uno : uno designers studio, testing a simplified approach to the product design and exploring the boundaries between process and persuasion. Previously he was Associate Creative Director at Frog Design, leading the ID team and focusing at the convergence of design, and interaction. In the early stages of his career he was a toy designer at Mattel and Fischer-Price.
Courses of Design in Milan
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