Three year course in Product Design

Learning by doing is the principle at the root of the three-year courses at Raffles Milano, a training experience that structures the mind, provides a solid technical foundation and unleashes a desire to broaden your life horizons.

Why?

Without design, the world would be a much poorer, more tiring place. The discipline of design can be defined as ‘pervasive intelligence’ that invites us to find new meanings and new solutions, and that educates people to generate value and values for the world around them. Design has always been a powerful driver of social and aesthetic progress and of thinking.

Professional opportunities

Design is an essential factor for every firm that makes the quality of its products a hallmark of its market positioning. That quality comprises the product’s conception, usability and emotional appeal, its ability to cater for the requirements of environmental sustainability, a suitable choice of materials and the product’s lifecycle. And the designer is the lead actor in the process of defining the product’s main characteristics. At the end of this course, students will be able to find opportunities for work or structured professional placement in all sorts of different fields of industry, wherever innovation converges with the quality of products, services, and processes.

Who should attend

The course is for applicants with a secondary school leaving diploma. Ideal students in this course aspire to transform their creative characteristics into the abilities to think, to conceive, to execute and to communicate projects, products, and services. The course provides them with the research tools, methodologies and processes they will need to be able to govern the complexity of designing. As design is interdisciplinary by nature, the course will introduce students to the tools they need to interact with various experts in managing the process, from the product’s conception to its market commercialization.

Curriculum

The first year curriculum is designed to enable students to learn the tools of basic design, perception and the human senses, familiarity with materials, history of design, design theory and representation, designing 1. The second year features a strong component of design labs, workshops, interdisciplinary labs and site visits to firms. The third year is devoted to analyzing future trends and scenarios, new opportunities for design, with the city as a theatre for design. The last semester focuses on developing a design thesis in partnership with firms.

Topics

• Basic design.
• Art and design history.
• Material design.
• Researching scenarios and developing concepts.
• Representing and communicating products and services.
• Physical and cognitive ergonomics.
• Perceived quality and sensations.
• Design and sustainability.
• Strategic marketing/product and communication.
• Design management.

Endorsements

For the quality and effectiveness of its didactic model, this Three-year course has been endorsed by: