The Faculty of Design, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, is one of the most important design schools in Poland, specializing in teaching product design, visual communication and fashion design. The subjects of study are diverse, and include applied art and design issues in modern and advanced technologies that are up to date or ahead of their time. The Faculty of Design, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, was ranked #13 in the Red Dot Design Ranking 2013: Universities in Americas and Europe.
Specialization Product and Visual Communication Design / 2D and 3D design Integrated curriculum
Product and Visual Communication Design requires flexible thinking and quick adaptation to the existing situation. The designer’s profession is bound with the need for continuous development, learning new technologies, adapting to new tasks. A broad spectrum of professional skills and a solid foundation of general, humanistic and technical knowledge allow our graduates to adapt to the changing conditions on the job market. In this specialization, the curriculum is designed to promote holistic thinking, combining objects design, visual communication and space, supported by knowledge of the market, technologies, social sciences and arts and culture. Students learn techniques of visualization, both analog and digital, experience an intensive course of technology and design, but also attend painting, drawing and sculpture classes. Developing a purely artistic slant is exceptional in most design schools internationally. Through exploration of the boundary between art and design, the designers are encouraged to experiment. Some fundamental issues of drawing, composition, colour, contrast, rhythm, texture, solid objects and space are subsequently transferred to the ground of design. No less important is training in the management of design processes, in branding, interaction design, as well as in criticism and theory of design. In addition, students acquire general knowledge of art history, ancient and modern philosophical ideas, aesthetics and media theory. Optional lectures and seminars in areas such as contemporary social theory, cultural anthropology, film and contemporary art criticism, give the graduates of this Faculty an opportunity to become part of general cultural environment on a par with other creative professions. Product Design and Visual Communication courses are offered at the first and second levels of academic education.
First degree program
Bachelor’s degree
Duration: 7 semesters
Course type: full-time
Languages: Polish, English
The first degree program in Product and Visual Communication Design teaches fundamental designer skills. Department of Design Elements and Principles offers courses teaching the canon of fundamental education, that is, providing training in the shaping of form, function, as well as making mock-ups and prototypes of objects or visuals. Senior students continue their education at the Faculty of Design, where they use and develop all previously acquired skills, realizing design assignments in conditions similar to those in the designer’s working environment. Graduates of the first-degree study program are ready to enter the professional world and work in project teams, can construct a foundation design, develop concepts of product, packaging and visual communication design and construct or oversee the implementation of the prototype, its evaluation, as well as participate in the process of implementation of the model into production. The Faculty has an extensive network of contacts with design studios, manufacturers and foreign universities. Students participate in internships, and have access to attractive international exchange programs.
Second degree program
Master’s degree
Duration: 3 semesters
Course type: full-time
Languages: Polish, English
The second degree program in Product and Visual Communication Design allows students to seek their own approaches with regard to the themes they have chosen to address. Special emphasis is laid on: technological and experimental design using the latest technology or referring to some projected inventions; socio-critical designing concerning the wider non-market design; and creative art and design activity in public space. The study program provides an option of specializing in theory of design. In that case the curriculum aims include developing new methods of research into design, methodology of design, developing new methods of production, and research into the relationship of aesthetics and market requirements. This is supplemented with courses in Design Management and Brand Design, as well as with research into the borderline between art and design. The program is based on maximum student autonomy in achieving their objectives. Design assignments are often carried out in collaboration with specialists from outside the design disciplines. Graduates of the second degree program are prepared to pursue professional activity and they are characterized by unconventional innovative approach to the designing process.
Specialization Clothing Design / Fashion Department
The Department of Fashion at the Faculty of Design offers a program in Clothing Design. There are two different words to describe the subject of study – clothing and fashion – because although they are akin to each other in meaning, these terms definitely have different contents. They refer to two different, but closely related, educational disciplines. Clothing Design focuses on objects: their forms, shapes, structures, techniques and materials. Fashion Design focuses instead on ideas: social, political, aesthetic, artistic, cultural; those of which fashion is born, and those that it shapes and implements itself. Clothing Design tells us of the means used by the designer in the development of personalized expression, which a fashion collection is in contemporary world. Nevertheless, it teaches not only how to use a particular language efficiently, but also how to test its boundaries, overcome limitations, put it to the test, experiment. The means that are used when designing clothing are in fact subject to constant evaluation and evolution. They change along with the changes in language, architecture, culture, views on the world and man, as shaped by science. Fashion Design explores ever more fluid boundaries between fashion and art; enriching design with the means of art; teaching how to use contemporary media to construct a statement, in which fashion is becoming one of the ways of describing and shaping the modern vision of the world; using sculpture, painting, drawing, graphic art, photography, film and performing arts for the purpose. Researching the history of fashion and clothing, theory of culture, literature, film and visual arts and learning about the
ideas and directions of modern university education, the Chair of Fashion introduces fashion to the world of the social sciences and humanities, regarding it as an inalienable part of the cultural heritage of the modern world.
First degree program
Bachelor’s degree
Duration: 7 semesters
Course type: full-time
Languages: Polish, English
The first degree program in Clothing Design ensures mastery of the necessary skills to take up the profession of fashion designer in today’s globalized fashion market. Design classes are held in English, and are taught by graduates of currently the most important fashion schools in the world (including the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and Central Saint Martins in London). The students complete a thorough course of sewing and garment construction, learn about the design process for both individual forms of clothing and the entire fashion collection; original fabric design, building a professional portfolio using drawings, graphics, typography, films and photographs. They learn methods of contemporary fashion communication, how to build their own brand’s visual identity, and the principles of cooperation with the media. Mandatory internships take place in the most famous fashion houses in the world, where the students become familiar with the functioning of the global fashion market and its links with business and the economy. The students explore the methods of cultural studies, which they use to learn the history of fashion in conjunction with wide-ranging history of culture, and get an opportunity to use their knowledge in the fields of humanities and social sciences to build fashion designs. Through participating in mandatory international workshops, they become acquainted with working in multicultural and multinational project teams, which is necessary in contemporary fashion environment.