Profile 
The Faculty of Design and Art has developed a study model which is based on project work. Here, interdisciplinary approach unites visual communication and product design. This innovative model, which connects theory with practice, provides a much more realistic link between the world of manufacturing and services.
During their project work, students will have to deal with complex practical problems that have to be researched and investigated individually in order to find inventive solutions. Project work will be amply supported by seminars whose theoretical content will consolidate the work completed during the projects. Moreover, project work will be fully consolidated through courses that take place in our specially equipped workshops - in which experimental work can be undertaken - as well as through further specialised courses. The workshop is a place where students should create and innovate, realising their ideas and learning through their mistakes. The workshops range from the most traditional, including various types of printing as well as wood and metal working, to workshops equipped with state-of-the-art technology such as rapid prototyping or digital photography and film. Furthermore, in order to establish a connecting link to the world of manufacturing and materials , a special materials and technology library has been set up by students for students, and will be continually up-dated with the results from their research.

Our students, who come from all over the world, study in the three official languages of the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano: Italian, German and English.
The teaching staff are international, young, innovative and motivated individuals who include professionals hailing from the world of work able to transmit the experiences gained through their work to our students. Although classes in the traditional sense do not exist, there are workgroups consisting of a maximum of twenty students, where students coming from the first, second and third year of the course will mix freely. This more equal composition of groups, where hierarchy ceases to exist, allows our students to demonstrate their talents, which can subsequently  be evaluated and encouraged more fairly and easily.
This excellent way of working  guarantees students direct contact with their lecturers and thus ensures that students are treated as individuals.

The Faculty is member of ADI, the Italian association of industrial design, founded in 1956 which has got more than a hundered members, and of AIAP, Associazione Italiana Progettazione per la Comunicazione Visiva, founden in 1945 which has got eighthundred members in Italy.

The Faculty is also member of Friends of Museion, an association of the Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art of Bolzano. The goal of the Friends of Museion is to establish contact with all those persons who take an interest in contemporary art and who desire to expand their own horizons.