Course description
Master Design for Kids & Toys.
The Specializing Master's degree in e-learning from Politecnico di Milano to learn how to design products and services with a high educational and recreational content for children.
Course:
The Specializing Master, in e-learning mode, aims to train a new generation of project professionals in terms of content and method, so that they are able to manage complex design processes in the world of products and services for children.
The purpose is to provide methods and tools to coordinate very different skills and to move safely among tangible constraints, such as security and regulation, and abstract objectives such as cultural, cognitive, pedagogical, playful and ethical ones.
The fourth edition of the Master is awaiting approval by the academic bodies.
Frequency:
The training course is based on a blended learning model that integrates theoretical training modules in e-learning mode with workshop activities and a project work developed during a professional internship.
Students, using the e-learning platform, attend e-learning didactic modules at a distance. This allows them to independently manage the times and times of use of the educational content with webinars that can be followed live or delayed via the online platform.
Training objectives:
The Specializing Master in Design for Kids & Toys aims to train, in terms of content and method,a new generation of designers able to manage complex design processes in the world of products and services for kids.
The didactic objective is to provide methods and tools to coordinate very different skills from each other and move safely between concrete constraints, such as security and law, and abstract goals such as cultural, cognitive, educational, recreational and ethical.
At the end of the Master students will have design and process skills, useful to manage highly complex Product Systems typical of all the sectors that have the child as a reference user.
Design a toy or a product/service for children needs the skills to design the whole system of artefacts, around the child and for products and services. Too often actually products for children have been interpreted as the declination of pre-existing goods, overloaded with signs, functions and colours inserted in a deliberately redundant packaging, or the unmediated reproduction of an adult object. Today technology offers interesting opportunities but often it is not a vehicle of qualified contents able to generate new ways of playing, learning and socializing or stimulating creativity and imagination, but more often it is a self-referential and not suitable for children component. The Master aims to train professionals able to exploit all the potentials and opportunities of technology and markets, putting the child at the center of any design process and innovation.
Didactic Plan
The training course is based on a blended learning model that integrates theoretical training modules in e-learning mode with workshop activities and a project work developed during a professional internship.
What is the e-learning mode?
Students, using the e-learning platform, attend e-learning didactic modules at a distance. This allows them to independently manage the times and times of use of the educational content with webinars that can be followed live or delayed via the online platform.
Didactic Modules:
The theoretical training modules, delivered in e-learning mode, will cover the following thematic areas:
MOD 1_DESIGN STRATEGIC FOR KIDS & TOYS
- user centered design;
- ethnography as an approach to meta design research;
- the strategic approach to innovation in the toy sector;
- strategic design and design process;
- the sustainable approach to innovation strategies in the toy industry;
- from the product to the system produced in the toy.
MOD 2_ HISTORY OF DESIGN FOR KIDS AND TOYS
- evolutionary stages of the relationship between design and childhood;
- theories, experiences and cases from the product to the laboratories;
- New game modes: VideoGames, are not toys, but children and adults play, ethics and regulations, potentials and problems, new jobs.
MOD 3_ BUSINESS, SECTOR AND MARKETS
- the national and international system of companies in the toy and children’s products sector;
- the transversal sectors (materials and technologies);
- toys for indoor and outdoor use;
- the national, European and international market;
- licensing between content and communication, Assogiocattoli and its system of associated companies;
- market trends and niches.
MOD 4_ TECHNOLOGIES AND MATERIALS
- traditional technologies;
- innovative technologies;
- traditional materials (wood, plastic materials etc.);
- innovative materials and new innovation scenarios;
- relationship between analog and digital.
MOD 5_ REGULATIONS AND SECURITY
- toy safety and the new Directive 2009/48 / EC;
- essential safety requirements and harmonized technical standards;
- markings and warnings;
- international regulations.
MOD 6_ PEDAGOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS
- the child and the perception of color;
- the game and the child: mental and emotional development;
- physical ergonomics and cognitive ergonomics;
- role of neuroscience;
- workshops for children, entertainment and training, from play to experience, from creativity to the project, adults and children, analog and digital, tradition and innovation: new skills for a growing sector.
MOD 7_ COMMUNICATION AND DISTRIBUTION
- communicate the project;
- communication tools and strategies for kids;
- distribution and retail channels, scenarios for new distribution;
- gamification and new professions, communication and service as components of the product system.
Design workshops:
The workshops are intensive planning sessions lasting four weeks.
Before the start of the workshops, a introduction week is scheduled with practical exercises in preparation for the development of the projects included in the workshops. The daily commitment may vary from 6 to 8 hours and the program of activities will be sent a month before it starts. Laboratory activities and workshops involve mandatory attendance.
For each of the workshops a project theme chosen by the management will be proposed in collaboration with partner companies and institutions and conducted with the support of experts and designers.
The design session will aim to explore innovation scenarios of “product system” for the world of Kids & Toys, offering participants a path of project development oriented to innovation not only of the product, but also of the size of the service, the communication method and distribution scenarios for national and international markets.
Internship:
Starting from the skills acquired in the e-learning modules and during the workshops, the candidate will then be able to develop a project work during a 3-month internship. During the internship the candidate can independently develop a final project based on the practical experience developed in the internship and the knowledge and interests gained throughout the Master.
The Final Project must be delivered in the form of a digital presentation and discussed in an examination session with the presence of the appointed Teaching Committee.
Starting from the skills acquired in the e-learning modules and during the workshops, the candidate will then be able to develop a project work during a 3-month professional internship. During the internship the candidate can independently develop a final project based on the practical experience developed in the internship and the knowledge and interests gained throughout the Master.
The Final Project must be delivered in the form of a digital presentation and discussed in an examination session with the presence of the appointed Teaching Committee.
Title Released:
At the end of the course, students who pass the final examination will receive a joint first-level Specializing Master in “Design for Kids and Toys” from Politecnico di Milano.
The Specializing Master grants 60 credits, equivalent to 60 ECTS.
Employment Opportunities
Master in Design for Kids & Toys has three types of employment opportunities:
freelance professionals and consultants able of thinking, developing and managing product service system projects and educational activities (training, laboratories, workshops etc.);
startuppers able of giving life to new businesses within offering for kids by taking cross-cutting opportunities in different sectors and areas (from technology to services);
positions in research and development offices, technical office, marketing and communication of companies, agencies and institutions that have business related to the child system.
Positions in retail specialized in the child system.
Admission:
Requirements:
The Specializing Master is for candidates with a Laurea (equivalent to Bachelor of Science) or Laurea Magistrale/Specialistica (equivalent to Master of Science) in Engineering, Architecture, Industrial Design, Economics, Communication Sciences, Science of Education. For foreign applicants, equivalent academic qualifications will be considered in the related study systems.
The selection is made by the Commission.
The selections will be made in chronological order with respect to the date of receipt of the application, until all available places have been filled.
The admission application must be presented in one day from the day after the date of this Decree and within January 2021.
