Master in Brand Design and Management - IED Firenze

Language

English

Start date

November 2026

Frequency

Full time

Fruition

On campus

Duration

1 Year

Course Coordination

Alessandro Grassi

Price

EU Students: €20.300

Non EU and EFTA+ Students: €22.300

Learn how to design memorable hospitality experiences with our Master’s Course in Brand Design for Hospitality

The Master’s Course in Brand Design for Hospitality has a focus on how branding and brand strategies can be applied to the HRC industry. As opposed to products and services, restaurants and hospitality providers as a whole are like ‘living entities’. To some extent, hospitality facilities can be regarded as a theatre scene where human interaction and magic blend together to tell a story.

When creating your brand strategy for a hospitality venue, you need to know how to set it apart from the competition. Your aim is to build up a clear and identifiable style which will work as the key factor driving customer choice. Indeed, your target customers will choose you among other restaurants, hotels, or wineries just because they want to 'hear that story’.

Anyone working in brand development and brand management for the hospitality industry would need to get first-hand experience of the restaurant environment. Your focus should be on how everything is arranged, on how people experience day-to-day activities interacting with the space around them. We will work with you along a path where you will learn how to properly coach your customers. You will take them through the process of designing their own location with a sense of character and experience. Hospitality brand designers must have a Munari-style and maieutic approach as they work on a variety of co-design projects with all the players involved in the process.

Information to decide

Learning how to co-create and narrate unforgettable food and hospitality experiences

The Master’s Course in Brand Design for Hospitality is a combination of conventional training and multidisciplinary perspectives, covering design, art, lifestyle and fashion. 

Traditional classroom teaching methods consisting of face-to-face lectures are complemented by practical training sessions for you to experience hands-on use of the Adobe Suite. We will be visiting restaurants, hotels and other similar businesses in the local area. You will have the opportunity to attend seminars, conferences, events and workshops with experienced professionals from around the world, learning about the best practices that institutions, companies, food and wine related hospitality providers are now developing to deliver excellence for their customers. 

A large part of the programme consists of working on design projects for some of IED partner companies, as they entrust students with solving real-world briefs. With this practical approach, you will be plunged right away into the world of work, engaging interactively with professionals, companies and the main brands currently shaping the restaurant, winery and hospitality markets.

The Master’s Course in Brand Design for Hospitality is for students with undergraduate degrees in marketing, communications, management, economics, service and product design, tourism and branding and any related disciplines. It is also for anyone with interest and a few years of experience in the area of tourism, food and wine. 

If you choose this course, you should feel motivated to acquire the tools needed for creating brands and working as a brand consultant in the hospitality industry. This course is indeed your best option if you enjoy project design and feel comfortable working in a laboratory setting, where you can get involved and experience a ‘learning by doing’ approach. 

If you have an open mind and want to enjoy some experience rather than just theory-based training, this Master’s Course will help you connect to your intuitions, giving them shape and translating them into real projects.

You will learn how to practise relevant skills to cover strategic roles with companies in the tourism, food and wine industry. Upon completion, you will be able to build formats/services as a Communication Expert in the hospitality, food and wine sectors.

Covering everything from branding techniques to service design, this Master’s Course is designed to help you develop your skills as a future Brand Designer in the HRC, food, wine and lifestyle industries. Specifically, this Master’s Course will cover hospitality and tourism service design. 

However, what really makes the Master’s Course in Brand Design and Management - Food, Wine and Tourism a unique learning experience is its hands-on approach. On this track, you start designing right away with a professional approach as you build step-by-step a set of project skills that will prove invaluable in the world of work.

Working with different solutions for each project, this Master’s Course provides a flexible approach to learning and knowledge building, with students progressing as they go through tests and analysis of their own mistakes. Experience with project work -with a focus on practice-oriented creative thinking- will also help you engage with your colleagues as part of cross-functional teams, bringing out everyone's strengths and potential areas for improvement. 
The main software you will need during your course is provided by IED!

On this page you will find all the features you need for your computer. 

Syllabus

Study programme

On the first part of the course we will be focusing on how to manage all the steps involved in brand creation, starting with content analysis. We will explore relationships between tourism, food and wine, brands, guests and customers, as you develop key brand design skills that can be applied to many different hospitality contexts. 

In part two we will look at how to create a service design project using a design approach. 
Upon completion of the course, you will be able to create a complex food design experience that can actually be implemented as a branding strategy. 

IED FIRENZE

  • Brand culture and Identity
  • Design Thinking
  • User Trends and Research
  • Brand Design for Hospitality
  • Experiences and Services Design
  • Wine Business Experience
  • Food Business Management and MarketingFinal Project
  • STUDY TRIP ABROAD

 

Faculty

Course Coordinator

Ilaria Legato

Brand e Food Designer

Course Coordinator

Alessandro Grassi

Founder and Managing Partner GRASSI & PARTNERS

Odin Rolland

Strategy Director

Benedetta Rossi

Journalist

Claudia Gelosa

Professor

Cinzia Spatafora

Hospitality Manager

What people say

"I’d describe my experience as improving, empowering and inspiring. Our teachers are professionals in the sector, so you actually see how you can work with real clients to create projects. The thing I learned in this Master that can make a change in my career is the different point of view that the teachers gave us and the different tools in brand strategy they taught us."

Adele Baronti

Brand Strategist at Krein | Alumna Master in Brand Design for Hospitality

Matteo Pizziol

"I chose this programme because I was interested in the field of hospitality, and from my previous studies I understood that this was my passion. I discovered it could be a great way to combine my passion for hospitality and the interest I have in design. I think that you have to choose this Master because it offers a mix of real cases and studies that will certainly help you in your future work."

Matteo Pizziol

Alumnus

Rositsa Dimova

"As a creative, it’s super important to get to the point and have the opportunity to express your ideas in actual projects. In the creative field, where what you need are connections, IED offers them to you in your hand."

Rositsa Dimova

Alumna

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