Brand design

Two-year Master’s Degree in Visual Communications
Coordinator teacher
Prof. Marco Tortoioli Ricci

The specialist two-year course allows enrolled students to achieve an II-level Academic Diploma in Painting, Sculpture, Scenography, and Brand Design, combining laboratory teachings about the four fundamental streams.

An obligatory constraint is placed upon certain subjects for each curriculum and compliance with the general structure of the study plan. These must necessarily include 120 credits divided between:

Basic Educational Activities – Laboratories: 4 exams, of which 2 are elective
Characterizing Educational Activities – Laboratories: 6 exams, of which 5 elective
Theoretical-Scientific Educational Activities: 4 exams, of which 3 are elective
Related/Supplementary Educational Activities: 2 elective exams
Final thesis

The theme of identity design within the visual communication design field is among those which has undergone the most evolution in recent years. Today there is a widespread reference to branding projects instead of the past ‘corporate identity’ projects. Often too easily, as if for a city, a street, or an institution, the simple adoption of a brand automatically resolves any reputational and, therefore, communication problem.

The master’s degree in Brand design of territories is dedicated to the specific area of identity design dedicated to places, starting from the ethnographic approach of the design process and its ability to involve communities, starting from their perceptions and mapping of their needs.

Therefore, in the specialist two-year period, the aim is to go beyond the pure design technique and form the students’ awareness of the skills necessary to launch and manage an identity project applied to complex scenarios, such as contemporary urban communities rather than individual neighborhoods or streets.

Students' works

Brand design_1
Brand design_2
PYRA - T.Calderini, T.Lotfi, J.Menciotti
PYRA - T.Calderini, T.Lotfi, J.Menciotti
PYRA - T.Calderini, T.Lotfi, J.Menciotti
PYRA - T.Calderini, T.Lotfi, J.Menciotti

Objectives

We will work with the students to define the concept of ‘branding’ as a design area linked to the theme of identity applied to companies, territories, and institutions, in the perspective that today entrusts these projects with the task of becoming a tool for inclusion and offering tools and languages capable of overcoming communicative and cultural barriers, which are often the basis of many reasons for conflict.

We will analyze and illustrate those variables that define the degree of uniqueness, pertinence, significance, usability, appropriation, and generativity of branding and how these enter the design process when we are required to design visual languages, forms, and systems.

An essential part of the course is dedicated to defining the concept of identity, which statements and interpretations it can give rise to, and its relationships with the variables brought into play in an anthropological and ethnographic key. The key principles of a brand will be analyzed: of its capability of being chosen by the community as an element of its sense of belonging.

To this end, the two-year period develops its study plan by integrating the various courses based on common projects on which the study paths proposed by each teacher converge, allowing each student to capitalize on the research work developed on the topic and then creating the design paths starting from a common knowledge base. This approach starts from the idea that the school, the Academy in particular, is an interlocutor between the community and local institutions, offering students a significant professional experience and accelerating processes of innovation and strategic rethinking that remain at the service of the community.

Employment prospects

The young designers who obtain a second-level master’s degree in brand design will be trained to operate as designers capable of managing complex systems linked to the design of the identity of places, cities, and communities. At the same time, the acquired skills will allow them to be able to work also for identity projects dedicated to public, cultural institutions, and associations, essentially for any complex resuscitation in which it is necessary to manage a complex system of factors that potentially contribute to the definition of the identity system to be made available to the relevant public.

In particular, students will have developed skills in managing the research and analysis phases necessary for the preliminary phases of the project or dedicated to field actions useful for collecting data and information necessary for the development of the design phase. The students acquire graphic skills dedicated to the design of fonts, logos, and brands, considering the necessary semantic strength and legibility, and memorization that these must have; the composition of identity manuals containing the guidelines for applying the brand to the various communication levels and channels; the ability to design both paper, digital and environmental communication and storytelling tools.

Graduating students will be prepared to find possible placement within existing design and communication studios and companies and will be able to start their businesses. The student will simultaneously be perfectly placed in the staff of offices of institutions, public or private companies dedicated to managing communication of the owner entity.