IED – Istituto Europeo di Design Florence

Course in Introduction to Design - Spring Semester

Level and prerequisites

This course is ideal for beginners with a serious interest in the subject. Students directly out of high school, or mature students who are ready for a career change.

Methodology and structure

This course will ground you in the basics of interior design. During your study, you will explore materials, finishes, spatial planning, and construction techniques for a range of residential projects, so as to creatively present your work using the latest industry software including AutoCAD 2D, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

The 17 teaching weeks that include a strategic combination of theoretical lessons, case studies, and workshops with industry professionals allow you to gain a solid foundation in the theoretical aspects of design, and through valuable hands-on projects, you will also gain practical knowledge. These training activities allow you to become familiar with the basic technical equipment as well as to acquire an adequate design methodology and a solid cultural preparation

While working on your final project, you experience the phases of the design methodology taking into consideration the economic and production features.

For every single subject, you take a final exam and by the end of the program, you present your final work so to demonstrate the knowledge and skills achieved.

Study Plan

History of Design 1

The study of the history of design conventionally starts from the late 19th century, when the social, technological, and industrial factors allow series production. The course analyses the main Italian and international movements in design culture, synthesizing the evolution of typological and formal archetypes and the advancements of building techniques and functionality.

Students learn the historic development of Western architecture, from the Industrial Revolution to contemporary scenario, and focus on project philosophy of the main representatives of the Modern Movement, analyzing the most important works that marked the history of design.

Technical Drawing: Autocad 2D

This course allows you to develop basic technical drawing abilities as well as 2D design skills. The course then goes on to study the illustration of the building blocks: the foundations, the masonry, and the floors, and the graphic techniques used for interior finishes, components, decorations, and technical accessories. You learn to use software programs that allow you to carry out 2D projects of objects and architectures, in order to check their dimensions and composition, before drawing up the project and producing the technical drawings in UNI format to be delivered to the customer.

Modeling Techniques 1

The course provides theoretical and practical tools to create visual and expressive models, using the most suitable materials according to the design scale and to the specific features of the project. The 3D view allows you to define the idea and check its validity, respecting physical laws, and techniques. Through laboratories, you build models with simple materials that enable quick corrections. Proper knowledge of the tools and accurate attention to detail allows the development of refined models for the project presentation to the customer.

Materials Typology 1

This course focuses on analyzing how materials behave: knowledge of crucial importance for translating an idea into the creation and making the best use of the expressive potential of the various materials, both traditional and experimental. The course tackles this topic from two related standpoints: one technical and scientific, the other focused on the history of technology. Theoretical lessons are intended to examine materials’ physical and morphological properties, as well as verifying the technologies used to transform them, and the industrial and craft processes used to work with them. The course tackles all the components of a building’s structure, studying all the natural and artificial materials used in defining an interior, with a special focus on their appearance and technical performance. Attention is then paid to designing a domestic bathroom and all the related hardware fittings.

Graphic Design: Photoshop and Illustrator

The course teaches graphic software, Photoshop, and Illustrator, as the main tool to represent and communicate a project. The program introduces you to the fundamentals of the digital world and provides essential knowledge and basic notions about graphic design and image processing.

Graphic composition facilitates the expression of an idea and allows creating the right relation between digital tools and visual perception; in addition, the graphic design facilitates the development of concepts, the two-dimensional image management, and the editing of contents.

Introduction to Marketing

This course looks at the role played by marketing in defining product strategy and its relationship with design. It develops the concept of market, which is treated as a collection of segments and as a place where the competition takes place between firms, leading to the need for market research. You will learn the methods used for conducting positioning research for the purpose of adopting a strategic approach to brand and product value. The course explores the concept of the target, i.e. the consumer and/or the person who triggers the buying process, thus influencing the market. Lastly, it tackles the marketing mix, studying how the product relates to the price and so to the market, so as to define all the promotion and advertising activities necessary for a successful product.

Design 1

The course faces the methodological development of a project, starting from the analysis of the brief and going further to the analytical phase of the research. During the course you will work on a concept of interior spaces, starting from the analysis of a private house, the distribution and functionality of the rooms, to finalize the design on the evolution of domestic spaces, designed for different targets of living. The course enables you to comprehend the relationship between people and the domestic space and how the composition of an environment influences people's psychophysical perceptions and sensorial responses.