DESIGN

Employment and professional opportunities for graduates.
Designer
Three-year graduates are able to interpret different contexts with versatility, looking beyond immediate perspectives to anticipate future behaviours and responses. Knows how to relate to companies, institutions, at a regional, national and international level, bringing strategic visions, creativity, innovative approaches.
Their employment prospects are diversified: from that of the free-lance called upon to offer design solutions and contributions moving freely on the market, to that of an operator capable of directing teamwork and becoming part of a company’s internal design department, but also as an analyst and a process facilitator.

Communication skills.
The exercise of communication skills assumes a key role in the training project. This is to allow graduates to acquire tools and strategies with which, during the design practice, the future designer will be able to interface/confront with his interlocutors, whether they are clients, experts and collaborators, stakeholders, individual users or groups. In this direction, the main lines of work embrace the two fundamental communicative dimensions for the designer:
· those attributable to the operational plan (in a multiplicity of declinations and expressions) and that is aimed both at the design elaboration in the strict sense - through models and conceptual schematizations of reality - and at the production, technical and executive aspects;
· those related to the strategic plan and the promotion of the project, through appropriate languages and formulas to convey the guiding ideas and the reference scenarios, by means of conceptual representations, visualizations, narrations, illustrations of imaginaries.
These aspects are handled with agility in the current scenario of communication and the media.
The training project pays particular attention to the acquisition of these skills, articulating their learning over the entire three-year period, in a series of incremental teaching moments. The entire training program also lays its foundations on a plurality of moments of exercise and verification of the ability to argue the design choices: in the reviews and intermediate presentations, in the internships, in the final plenary presentations of the project, as well as in the opportunities for discussion and interaction, even outside the community of our school, with a plurality of external subjects (stakeholders, experts, teachers and 'visiting' researchers).

Learning skills.
The degree programme graduates must have developed the ability to exploit both the "indirect" knowledge - of a speculative nature - acquired in the course of training, and the 'direct' one - based on design comparison, experience by trial and error, on the analysis of case studies and experiences conducted by others - to filter future experiences and problems obtaining new knowledge. This in the context of the personal acquisition of a non-abstract methodological model of elaboration and analysis, together with the maturation of one's own system of values with which to interpret a multiplicity of instances, identifying their synthesis thanks to an overall vision of the process and the ability to harmonize the variables in play harmoniously. A key component of responsible design is the designer's ability to assume responsibility: which means not only making choices, but also putting himself in a position to do so consciously, to give meaning and complete form to the solution of particular problems, within the framework of the needs of the time. The training model underlying this vision of building knowledge draws inspiration from that of "basic design" and is articulated in a series of intermediate learning opportunities: preparation for know-how takes place through a series of incremental steps, the sequence of which is primarily aimed at building an overall aptitude for design. Even the positive "interference" between small concentrated experiences (intensive workshops, interclass workshops, with external subjects) and wider-ranging design tasks (the six-monthly design workshops) represents an intentional element of problematic growth and maturation. The results achieved by students in the design laboratories - and especially in the integrated ones, in which the dialogue between different disciplines is intended to introduce, as learning opportunities, different models of construction of knowledge and interpretation of reality, transversal to the educational project - as well as in the final synthesis laboratories and in conducting the final test, represent the moments of verification of this objective.

Making judgements.
The ability of the problem-solver – one of the key qualities traditionally associated with the figure of the designer – is accompanied by that of the decision-maker. In fact, the designer directs and coordinates the collection of project data, confronts the problems that inform him and the requests of the various actors involved but, ultimately, is called above all to make decisions, through his design choices, assuming responsibility for them also in terms of their economic, social, ethical and environmental effects. To stimulate the students' development of an autonomous maturity of judgement, the training project foresees the comparison with an articulated set of experiences, such as to promote a problematic and complex vision, which offers the tools to interpret reality in a critical way, on the basis of analytical and methodological elements but also - through the exercise of lateral thinking - according to one's own personal point of view. The training program therefore assigns a key role, starting from the first year, to the assumption of individual responsibility by those who follow it: students are in fact encouraged to make informed decisions with respect to the opportunities offered by the Degree Course in terms of composition of the training course. Throughout the three-year period - in the selection of thematic trajectories of the annual interclass workshops, in the identification of internship activities and other elective activities, in the declination of the theme on which to articulate the final exam - they are to some extent called to outline the 'design' of their own personal training itinerary. The coherence of the choices and the overall results achieved - verifiable at several levels: from design laboratories to individual courses; from the answers to individual project themes, to the ability to harmonize the overall design - will be evidence of the successful acquisition, by the students, of the component of an independent judgment capacity.

Knowledge and understanding.
Scientific training
Design graduates are trained in the intuitive and analytical understanding of geometric space, its conceptualisation practices and the modes of its relationships and transformations. They are also able to translate the fields of spatial development and plastic composition into useful and applicable solutions to concrete needs.

Technology training
Design graduates are familiar with the set of production methods of the industrial product in relation to the possible options in the choice of resources, materials and processing, structural characteristics, production contexts and different economic-production options.

Basic training in the project
Consistent with the relevant production, social, and cultural contexts, graduates possess an articulate overview of design as a system for addressing and solving design problems in the areas of consumer goods, communication artefacts, and services. They are able to gather and process the elements that inform design in relation to its development and production, usability, and ability to express values that are not strictly functional. Design graduates are also capable of exercising control over the conduct of the various stages of design: in the relationship with clients, in the interaction with a variety of collaborators, and in the communication and transmission of design ideas.

Humanities education
The graduate possesses the foundation for framing the historical progression of design in light of its intersections with culture, technology and society. He/she is therefore able to correctly frame the spatio-temporal dimension of artefacts, objects and environments, grasping their styles, influences and references to contexts.

Basic training in representation
Graduates are familiar with the range of representational systems and have acquired the necessary control of the technical-expressive graphic dimension required to elaborate and communicate design ideas. In particular, they are familiar with the use of a variety of drawing and graphic rendering techniques for the purpose of expressing and communicating the design idea.

Multimedia design and communications
Design graduates are able to exercise control over the ways in which the designer's own design expertise is translated into a variety of different application fields.
They are able to manage the use of digital information processing tools and techniques around design; they control the methodologies and procedures for the design, transformation and production of material goods; they are able to deal with design issues related to the experience and fruition of space, including for the translation and presentation of information content to the public; they are familiar with the contemporary "immaterial" design declinations of applications and artefacts of digital communication, the web and social networks. Graduates control the theoretical-practical dimension underlying the multimedia and audio-visual artefacts that populate the current communication scenario and, finally, are capable of declining design in terms of a strategic activity, for the design of innovative services and as a tool for social innovation.

Technology and engineering disciplines
Design graduates are well versed in the set of process technologies with which, at different scales and in different production contexts and in accordance with environmental emergence, design enters into dialogue for the creation and distribution of new material products and intangible services. They are also familiar with the set of different forms of graphic expression, understood as technical elements of design representation functional to its design evolution. Of these technical forms, also in the perspective of their historical-technological evolution, they know how to make use as many languages: technical design, illustrative, artistic.

Economic and social sciences
Design graduates are able to integrate notions proper to the socio-economic sciences into their design awareness and sensitivity, deriving additional elements of knowledge from interdisciplinary comparison. They know how to profitably grasp the contributions of this disciplinary field, which broadens their cognitive horizons and contributes to the maturation of analytical and critical skills, thanks to which the designer can offer himself as an interpreter and mediator of different instances.

Related or supplementary educational activities
Design graduates integrate and/or complete their training through confrontation with themes useful for declining in a dialectical key the more properly design attitude and approaches. They know how to situate the design of tangible goods, intangible artefacts, communication and services, in relation to the needs of environmental balance and within the framework of a dimension that embraces both the territorial and housing scales, focusing on the reasons and logic between local and global.

Applying knowledge and understanding.
Scientific training
The knowledge acquired translates into the ability to employ the language and tools of geometry as the basis for articulating an idea of form and translating it having understood its constructive, procedural and semantic potential. The teaching relates to subject area Mathematical analysis (MAT/03).

Technology training
The direct confrontation offered by the design exercise with respect to possible formal solutions, the integration of structural and accessory elements, and the concreteness of implementation constraints allows the application of knowledge to production processes and the understanding of problematic aspects (referable to subject area Structural mechanics - ICAR/08) thanks to which choices can be made in terms of economy of scale and sustainability.

Basic training in the project
Based on a general framework of methodological knowledge and applied experience, graduates are able to apply broad and problematic knowledge and understanding about the meaning of design to a variety of issues and needs. They are also able to work out the appropriate solutions for managing the design and implementation process.

Humanities education
The problematic confrontation with the subject matter will enable students to transform their historical-critical reading skills into a dynamic tool for interpreting present reality. Achieving a full awareness of the experiences in which design has been articulated historically constitutes a key element in the application of the knowledge acquired, and in the understanding of how to articulate one's own critical baggage of references, including strictly design-related ones.

Basic training in representation
Graduates are able to apply the framework of disciplinary knowledge to their design tasks, through the identification of the most suitable expressive solutions and personal use of the language of images

Multimedia design and communications
Characteristic of the designer is the ability to interweave the theoretical and practical dimensions, constantly applying, in the exercise of design, the knowledge acquired in a variety of disciplinary fields and occasions. Direct confrontation with multiple and diverse declinations of design activity is the essential condition for testing the ability to transfer one's knowledge to the application level, developing problematic models of understanding reality and generating new knowledge.

Technology and engineering disciplines
The confrontation with the application opportunities and concrete problems proposed by the experience of design workshops, in the face of real cases, allows design graduates to refine their abilities to apply their knowledge and understanding of the correspondence between design objectives, costs and production conditions, and possible target markets. Relative to the techniques of graphic expression, familiarity-combined with a critical and not merely instrumental approach-with this system of thematic languages enables design graduates to apply their knowledge and understanding of its modalities in order to convey the graphic information from time to time most appropriate with respect to a given communicative condition.

Economic and social sciences
A key objective of the entire educational model, graduates' propensity for interdisciplinary integration is also realised with respect to the teachings pertaining to economic and social sciences, traceable to subject areas Demology, ethnology and anthropology (M-DEA 01), Management (SECS-P/08), and Sociology of culture and communication (SPS/08). Indeed, the project exercise, directed at stimulating the aptitude for lateral thinking, offers concrete opportunities to apply the knowledge and understanding gained from confrontation with these disciplines.

Related or supplementary educational activities
The comparison of design methodologies with different themes, cases and scales of intervention is an opportunity to apply disciplinary knowledge and to verify understanding, in relation to problems and magnitudes of intervention that can be traced back to subject areas Ecology (BIO/07), Architectural and urban design (ICAR/14), Urban and regional planning (ICAR/20), and Logic and philosophy of science (M-FIL/02).

Language(s) of instruction/examination.
ITALIAN

Skills associated with the function
Designer
The graduate in design is capable of developing innovative solutions within the context of the creative design, manufacturing and distribution processes of goods and services, with the techniques, languages and in line with today’s communication system. Either working within a company or s an independent designer/consultant, the three-year graduate manages the basic aspects of the strategy, implementation and production of visual and corporate visual communication, knows how to draft its design and  to control the actual production of visual, audiovisual, interactive artefacts, visual contents for web/social platforms.
Is also able to design products, knows how to manage the tools and ways to interact with those in charge of the actual production – by providing them with the needed executive materials – and how to finalize the engineering and manufacturing aspects.

Function in a work context
Designer
Our design graduated our students have the key skills traditionally associated with the designer’s profile: capacity to develop innovative solutions; analytical and synthetic skills; an autonomous and already mature exercise of problem-solving.
Either operating independently as an external consultant, or as an active member of company teams, the three-year designer graduate knows how to carry out research for positioning new products and services on the market; has developed strategic thinking; and is capable of providing design solutions in a plurality of areas: graphic and product design, multimedia, social network communication.

Educational goals
The three-year study plan embraces product and communication design, and at the same time touches on the various areas in which the professionalism of the contemporary designer is articulated: strategic design, service design, audio-visual and multimedia design, the creation of events and cultural experiences, info-design and integrated promotion and communication on new media. On this basis, the objective at the centre of the educational project is to train a designer familiar with the ideational, construction and distribution processes of the design of goods and services and with the techniques, languages and methods of communication of the current scenario. A hybrid figure who, on the basis of a preparation that combines specific skills, design methodology and vision skills, is able to interpret a multiplicity of different requests, identifying their synthesis and solution in the relationship with companies, institutions and social actors at regional, national and international level. 
The didactic organisation is structured by thematic semesters, articulated along the three-year course in a sequence of training experiences, according to a model that starts from a general framework gradually focusing on specific reference areas. 
In the first semester of the first year of studies, the point of view frames the dimension of emerging problems on a global scale (course Design for the planet), emphasising in particular the urgency of intervention on major environmental issues. The course units Images I (Drawing and Photography), History of Design and course units aimed at offering further basic skills (Geometry, Philosophy of art) complete this introductory cycle. In the second semester, with the Design and places course, attention moves to the territorial dimension, highlighting the need for a constant comparison of man with his surroundings. The Culture of Design course unit is assigned the task of introducing students to the methodological aspects of design and to the cultural mediation function that design can play in society. A course unit in Cultural Anthropology complements and integrates. 
The first semester of the second year includes course units related to communication practices that characterize the current media scenario: Design of digital culture (Info Design and Digital Design), Theory of audio-visual languages, together with the course units Images II (dedicated to Graphic Languages). In the second semester, the teaching of design shifts to the topics of material culture and the product (Design of material culture), updated to the practices of the new craftsmanship and digital manufacturing. The teachings of manufacturing process technology, models and technologies of materials for design and marketing corroborate the itinerary.
In the third year, the Exhibit Design laboratory presents students with the complex interweaving between communication languages and organization of space, while the Design for Society course unit outlines the scenarios of relationships and interactions between the disciplines of design and the design of processes and services.
The second and last semester is dedicated to the synthesis and completion of the learning process: professional internships, development of the personal portfolio, elective courses, improvement of the English language, preparation of the end-of-career dissertation.
The training project assigns a particularly important task for the development of the aptitude for the project to the series of annual inter-class workshops, designed for a direct comparison with the problems expressed by the territories and the world of work. The workshop activities will be based on dialogue with external subjects (institutions, companies, artisans, entrepreneurial initiatives) who will bring the design practice experiences to confront real-world themes and problems. The main addresses of the workshops follow the thematic lines of heritage design, the enhancement of local products and the relationship between design and craftsmanship, but can include transversal fields such as fashion, entertainment, technical, social and scientific communication.
The yearly workshops are the backbone of an educational project aimed at empowering students in building their own personal, cultural and professional development. The three main thematic strands, which configure corridors 'passing' along the three years of the course, offer them opportunities for discovery and choice, so that they can independently trace individual paths through the basic plan of studies.
These tracks can also be enriched by participation in the foreseen parallel activities (summer schools, courses with free credits), with the choice of a targeted internship, with the attendance of a Final Synthesis Laboratory and the elaboration of the end-of-career test.
The overall path - in line with the tradition of our Department - will also be characterized by the offer of an articulated program of professional internships, in and outside Sardinia, with a marked orientation towards internationalisation.