Italy: A Hub of Design and Imagination
“Art asks questions, technology creates new opportunities, design provides solutions.” – John Maeda
For the past 4 months, Miranda Ting, GDD Assistant Professor, has been exposed to design history, emerging technologies, and design thinking while living in Milan, Italy. As a student in the Masters in Web and Digital Design through Scuola Politechnica di Design (SPD), Miranda is exercising her skills in UX design, front-end technologies, digital story-telling, e-commerce design and upper-level critical thinking. These are hot topics in the design field with skills that are in high demand. Miranda is excited to take the knowledge learned from the program and apply it to GDD, and the proposed GDD major that is currently in its approval phase. The Masters program itself is incredibly vigorous with a huge amount of group collaboration involving iterations in storyboarding and conceptual thinking.
Miranda reflects on her time so far saying:
“Milan is a wealth of design knowledge. It has deep roots in art history, a multitude of museums, and interesting underground street scenes. Everything in Italy is steeped in design: the architecture, fashion, food, and cars – all aspects of life are designed and part of a luxurious Italian culture. This is where the old and the new meets.”
At the end of the course, Miranda will participate in a 3-month full-time internship in a design studio where she can apply the skills learned in the program. Some highlights during her time in Italy so far include Milano Digital Week, a Toulouse Lautrec exhibit, Revolution: Exploring the 60’s exhibit, discovering authentic Italian food in the side streets, and collaborating with other designers from around the world (Russia, Thailand, Congo, Azerbaijan, India, and New York).
