VISITING PROFESSORS

The contribution of the visiting professors, involved in conducting the workshops in the Master’s Degree, contributes to nurturing the design of communication also from an international perspective.

Paul McNeil

University for the Creative Arts, MuirMcNeil Design Systems, London (UK)

image / icon / symbol / script / type

The workshop allowed students to develop an understanding of the operations and functions of visible language in the form of pictograms, symbols, scripts and type.
Participants were asked to imagine that writing does not yet exist in our culture and that it is their task to invent it.
The workshop followed nine practical stages in sequential order, which emulated the emergence of mark-making towards pictography, handwriting and typography, its mechanised form for mass communication.

Workshop February 5/9, 2024
1° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Paul McNeil, University for the Creative Arts, MuirMcNeil Design Systems, London (UK)
Prof. Alessandro Colizzi, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Annunziato Mazzaferro

Melanie Levick-Parkin

Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield (UK)

Exploring Ecofeminist Perspectives through Communication Design Practices

The aim was to develop an understanding of ecofeminist perspectives and how they might contribute to the development of design ontologies that challenge white, western, and patriarchal value systems within communication design.
Working in small teams, students developed a self-initiated project which included a wide range of working methods, including visualisation, paper experimentation, photography, film, animation, collage, re-use of images, ai-generated images, typography, mark-making, etc.

Workshop February 12/16, 2024
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Melanie Levick-Parkin, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield (UK)
Prof. Valeria Bucchetti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Francesca Casnati

Jeremy Francis Leslie

magCulture, London (UK)

The New Materiality of Indie Magazines

Magazines are no longer a mass-media channel with large numbers of promiscuous readers. Today, they are a niche medium for smaller communities of super-loyal readers.
The print magazine allows the designer to work in a less complex creative space that encourages creative complexity rather than imposes technological complexity. The designer can express themself. The workshop encouraged students to experiment, be exuberant, and create a physical experience that challenges the reader.

Workshop February 12/16, 2024
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Jeremy Francis Leslie, magCulture, London (UK)
Prof. Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Stefania Zanetti

Noortje Van Eekelen

ACED, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

An Advance on the Future: Designalism

Designalism – the combination of design and journalism – offers opportunities to broaden and diversify media to better inform and engage the public with what is happening in the world. Design and journalism are known as two separate fields, each with its own values and knowledge. Today we see that the two areas overlap more and more. The workshop focused on creating experimental media productions for new audience(s).

Workshop February 27/March 3, 2023
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Noortje van Eekelen with Jasper Schelling, ACED, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Prof. Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Carlo Ottaviani

Ivica Mitrovic

Arts Academy, University of Split (Croatia)

(Post) Human Environments and Human Resilience

The goal was to speculate and sketch possible local near-future community resilience as a way of reclaiming and bringing back a positive vision of the future, redefining our relationship with the changing nature and thinking about different approaches, tools, methods and mechanisms for this transformative process via design practice. The results, achieved via future speculations and present-time research, were developed as various communication design outcomes (services, objects, communications and others).

Workshop, February 6/10, 2023
1° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Ivica Mitrović, Arts Academy, University of Split (Croatia)
Prof. Francesco E. Guida, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Manola Buonincontri

Daniele Savasta

University of Economics, Izmir (Turkey)

Italian Design Microstories: exposing Aiap collection

How to tell a historical narration through a digital platform? What alternatives can we produce to distillate the content of a large collection into an accessible, enjoyable, concise experience? How might we benefit from data visualisation and information design techniques to access this knowledge? In the workshop students produced a set of digital design proposals and prototypes that revisit a stagnant and obsolete vision of design history, using the materials of the Centro di Documentazione sul Progetto Grafico of AIAP (the Italian Association of Visual Designers) as sources.

Workshop, February 6/10, 2023
1° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Daniele Savasta, University of Economics, Izmir (Turkey)
Prof. Francesco E. Guida, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Alessandra Facchin

Petra Černe Oven and Barbara Predan

Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Visualizing life in the doughnut

Explore, understand, visualise, raise awareness and motivate different stakeholders in challenging existing systems to contribute to the world we want to live in.
Starting from the paradigms developed by Kate Raworth regarding “Doughnut economics”, the workshop focused on information design in general and on the visualisation of complex issues in particular through the design of communication systems.

Workshop February 14/18, 2022
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof, Petra Černe Oven and Prof. Barbara Predan, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Prof. Alessandro Colizzi, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Alice Maturo

Sbrina Scuri

Interactive Technologies Institute, Madeira (Portugal)

P2P Energy Trading

The workshop dealt with sustainability, energy efficiency and behaviour change through the design of digital apps and services. Specifically, it explored the communication strategies that promote behaviour change and adoption of energy efficiency practices, support the energy transition, and foster people’s understanding and engagement in the decentralized energy market.

Workshop February 7/11, 2022
1° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Sbrina Scuri, Interactive Technologies Institute, Madeira (Portugal)
Prof. Marco Quaggiotto, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Michela Rossi

José Manuel Allard

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Generation Corona. The childhood in 2030

According to UNICEF, around 116 million babies will be born under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. Newborns have arrived at an extreme reality facing restrictive measures, such as isolation and curfews; the crisis in health centers and an imminent global economic recession. This speculative and experimental workshop proposes to imagine what the childhood of those born in 2020 will be like in ten more years. Through megatrends analysis we will use a particularly useful forward-looking methodology to project assumptions about the future and consider a broader range of Design solutions and opportunities.

Workshop February 15/19, 2021
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. José Manuel Allard, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Prof.ssa Valeria Bucchetti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Nicolò Grandieri

Ruedi Baur

Intégral Ruedi Baur, Francia

Relationship Design

Imagine a world where competition is no longer the prime mover. A world where mutual aid, solidarity, sharing, caring, human relations and relations with the environment would become priorities. What would design be like then? What would be our design methods? The workshop, through the visualization of a series of systems of human relations and dynamics within a district on the outskirts of Milan, used as a case study, intended to stimulate the research for scenarios to improve the quality of life.

Workshop February 15/19, 2021
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Ruedi Baur, Intégral Ruedi Baur, France
Prof. Alessandro Colizzi, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Michela Rossi

Guillermina Noël

Lucerne School of Art and Design, Svizzera

Promoting healthy behaviours in times of Covid

The students, using the human-centered design approach, through an iterative process of observation and progressive approach to the finalization of the design prototypes, worked to understand the problems related to the use of information related to COVID-19, on the use of the mask and on social distancing behaviors.

Workshop February 22/26, 2021
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof.ssa Guillermina Noël, Lucerne School of Art and Design, Switzerland
Prof.ssa Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Sara Lavazza

Nik Baerten

Pantopicon, Belgium

New Kingdom 2070 - Plantelligence

A speculative design workshop focused on designing future visions of a new post-anthropocentric era. “New Kingdom 2070: Plantelligence”, in fact, is not only the title of the workshop, but also the name of the future fictitious event, a conference of experts of nature and plants, in which the students had to immerse themselves as protagonists imagining possible scenarios and representing them through a final performance and multimedia contents.

Workshop February 10/14, 2020
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Nik Baerten, Pantopicon, Belgium
Prof.ssa Francesca Piredda, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Valeria Piras

Anastasios Maragiannis

University Of Greenwich, UK

Diversity and Inclusivity by Design: Empowering Individuals

What is enabled when designers design with, and for others? To design inclusively is to engage people deeply throughout the design process, sharing our practices and amalgamating people’s unique knowledge as design interventions. Through practice research d+iD the aim was to amplify, diversify, and mobilise this under-investigated aspect of practice and discourse; where design acts inclusively regardless of disability, gender, ethnicity, vulnerability, language or age.
The aim was to work with creative people that through their design work want to change the way we see things; to rapidly diagnose and explore key challenges and highlight opportunities where design can add measurable social, commercial and non-commercial value.

Workshop February 10/14, 2020
1° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Anastasios Maragiannis, University Of Greenwich, UK
Prof.ssa Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Camilla Pilotto

Mark Roxburgh

University of Newcastle, Australia

News? What's new. Communication design and media fakery

In this workshop, students undertook basic design research into the topic of fake news. They used the research data they generated to create an editorial design project to tell a specified audience what they have learned about fake news. Students had the possibility to choose to critique fake news; educate people about it; make fun of it; propose an antidote to it; create their own fake news and explain how it is done. Students have chosen media types and platforms they wanted to design for based upon their research and their specified audience / or user.

Workshop February 17/21, 2020
2° year of the MSc in Communication Design

Prof. Mark Roxburgh, University of Newcastle, Australia
Prof. Elena Caratti, Politecnico di Milano
Tutor: Sara Lavazza

Alexandra Kot

Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Poster Workshop

One or each of these three words, which are commonly associated with ecological issues, served as a call slogan to create a context and indicate any problem that concerns us the most in the world around us. The aim was to formulate individual comments using a visual language. The final output (traditional poster or digital version for social media or animated) was diversified according to the appropriateness and consistency between the message, the visual and the medium.