Course General Description

Designing a consumer product (or a tool, a car, a piece of furniture) does not mean just inventing something, but also knowing how to describe its characteristics in functional, physical, technical, aesthetic-formal and image terms, so that its use can be understood and its possible realization and production can be described. Therefore, product design implies a great variety of complementary skills, all equally functional to the development of objects designed for the needs of those who will have to use them, and before, to realize them. The product designer's project development is the creative ideation or redefinition of everyday artefacts and everything that people choose, buy, use, consume; his/her proposal is an innovative solution, adjusted to the individual and collective needs, understandable in use, respectful of regulatory requirements, consistent with the opportunities and the environmental, technological and productive restrictions. The designer knows how to understand and provide answers to the user's expectations, by connecting them with those of the economic and production system and has the necessary skills to create something that can be realized according to the industrial reproducibility rules, in full agreement with his/her socio-economic context, social conventions, traditional and innovative technologies, business techniques, market rules, distribution and communication. His/her intellectual role is to promptly understand the design question and provide an improvement from cultural, social and technical point of view.

School General Description

Politecnico Milano is a scientific-technological university which trains engineers, architects and industrial designers. The University has always focused on the quality and innovation of its teaching and research, developing a fruitful relationship with business and productive world by means of experimental research and technological transfer. Research has always been linked to didactics and it is a priority commitment which has allowed Politecnico Milano to achieve high quality results at an international level as to join the university to the business world. Research constitutes a parallel path to that formed by cooperation and alliances with the industrial system. Knowing the world in which you are going to work is a vital requirement for training students. By referring back to the needs of the industrial world and public administration, research is facilitated in following new paths and dealing with the need for constant and rapid innovation. The alliance with the industrial world, in many cases favored by Fondazione Politecnico and by consortiums to which Politecnico belong, allows the university to follow the vocation of the territories in which it operates and to be a stimulus for their development.