Course Topics
Work. Work. Work. Working as a Communication Designer Today In Il mestiere di grafico (1978), Albe Steiner reminds us that becoming a graphic designer means constantly negotiating between the technical demands of the discipline, one's own experience, the cultural and political context, and the people for whom design is ultimately made. This observation remains crucial today: communication design is never merely a formal exercise, nor a purely technical execution, but a situated practice shaped by responsibility, relationships, mediation, and material conditions. Work is never only work. It is discipline and negotiation, desire and fatigue, research and deadline, authorship and compromise. Between otium and negotium — between the time of study, reflection, and intellectual freedom, and the world of obligation, production, and exchange — design takes shape as a practice that is never isolated from society. In opposition to the vanished Eldorado of 1980s studio culture, where the designer’s studio was often imagined as a space of creative freedom, this course approaches visual communication design as a situated profession: one made of relationships, commissions, constraints, public responsibility, and people. Based on this premise, Work. Work. Work. is a course about the fundamentals of communication design, but its core is deliberately a non-theme. Rather than beginning from a single subject, style, or medium, the course begins from work itself: the work of observing, interpreting, designing, presenting, revising, collaborating, and taking responsibility for one’s decisions. Through three real commissions developed with three actual teaching partners, students will encounter the basic conditions of professional design practice and begin to understand what awaits them in the fields of visual communication, cultural production, communication and identity systems, campaigns, public communication, and client-based design. The course treats visual communication not simply as the production of images, but as a relational process. Design shapes how identities, institutions, communities, and narratives become visible, legible, recognizable, or contested. Every project will therefore ask students to consider not only what they are designing, but for whom, with whom, and under which conditions. The designer’s task is not merely to express an idea, but to mediate between contexts: between the inside and the outside, between the personal and the professional, between private research and public form, between intuition and analysis, between the two hemispheres of practice—conceptual thinking and visual execution. Work.work.work is an introduction to design as a profession, but also to design as a way of living with others. It asks students to face the productive friction between autonomy and service, expression and function, sustainability and economic pressure, ambition and care. To become a designer is not only to learn how to make things visible; it is to learn how to work with constraints, with clients, with publics, and with the consequences of one’s choices. The course therefore insists on a simple but demanding idea: design is made through work, and work is made through relationships. To design professionally means learning how to come together, how to negotiate without giving up one’s position, how to sustain a practice without ignoring the conditions that make it fragile, and how to produce communication that speaks not to abstract users, but to people.

Teaching format
The semester is organized around three real briefs, each developed in collaboration with an external partner. These commissions will function as laboratories through which students will progressively acquire the tools, methods, and attitudes of visual communication design. Each brief will introduce different scales, constraints, audiences, and formats, allowing students to work across research, concept development, typography, image-making, layout, identity, presentation, and critical reflection. The course will combine studio work, collective critiques, frontal lectures, workshops, reviews, presentations, and moments of discussion with external guests. International guest lecturers, selected for their relevance to the course’s concerns, will contribute perspectives on professional practice, visual culture, design ethics, commissioning, authorship, and the changing conditions of creative labour. Subject to faculty approval, the course will also include a preparatory educational excursion. This excursion will support the aims of the course by allowing students to encounter design beyond the classroom, through direct observation of professional, cultural, institutional, or production contexts related to the briefs.

Educational objectives
Knowledge and understanding have acquired their own project methodology in the field of visual communication, from the phase of planning to the phase of realisation of the project. have acquired the basic practical and theoretical knowledge necessary to realise a project in the field of visual communication. have acquired the basic knowledge to be able to turn a critical eye to their own work and to deal with contemporary complexity. have acquired the basic knowledge necessary for further Master's studies in all components of project culture as well as in theoretical subjects. Applying knowledge and understanding plan, develop and realise a project in the field of visual communication. be able to finalize the creation of an accomplished project in the field of visual communication, thanks to the basic knowledge acquired in the practical, scientific and theoretical fields. recognise the main phenomena of contemporary society, to observe them critically, also from an ethical and social point of view, and to elaborate appropriate solutions at the level of a design proposal/response. make use of the skills acquired during the course of study in the event of continuing studies in a Master's degree programme in the field of visual communication and to develop them further. Making judgements be able to make independent judgements for the purpose of developing their own design skills and in relation to all those decisions that are necessary to bring a project to completion. be able to make independent judgements, both in the critical evaluation of their own work and in their ability to use the right interpretative tools in those design contexts in which they will work and/or continue their studies, also considering ethical and social aspects. Communication skills present an independently realised project in the field of visual communication in the form of an installation, orally as well as in writing in a professional manner. to professionally communicate and substantiate one’s own decisions and justify them from a formal and theoretical point of view. communicate and present your own project at a professional level in another language and correctly in a third language in addition to their own language. Learning skills have learned a work methodology at a professional level - in the sense of being able to identify, develop and realise solutions to complex problems by applying the knowledge acquired in the practical and theoretical fields - in order to start a professional activity and/or continue their studies with a master's degree program. have developed a creative attitude and learned how to enhance it and develop it according to their own inclinations. have acquired basic knowledge in theoretical and practical subjects as well as a study methodology suitable for continuing studies with a master's degree program.

Additional educational objectives and learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be expected to understand the foundations of visual communication design as both a creative and professional practice. They will learn how to read a brief, conduct research, define a design problem, develop a concept, build a visual system, make formal decisions, and present their work clearly and persuasively. Particular attention will be given to the ability to move between research and form, between critical thinking and practical execution. Students will learn that communication design is not only commitment, authorship, and investigation, but also negotiation: negotiation with clients, with collaborators, with contexts, and with the people who will ultimately encounter, use, or interpret the work. Students will also develop skills in presenting and defending their projects. They will be asked to articulate the reasons behind their decisions, to listen to feedback, to revise their proposals, and to understand critique not as judgment alone, but as a working method. Presentation will be treated as an essential part of design practice: a moment in which ideas become shareable, debatable, and accountable.

Assessment
The final assessment consists of the submission, presentation, and discussion of the projects developed throughout the semester, together with their supporting documentation. Students will present their work following the guidelines provided during the course. They will be expected to discuss their projects critically, engaging with the references introduced throughout the semester while demonstrating a personal interpretation of the design themes addressed. Participation in the final presentation (GOG)—including the preparation, installation, and dismantling of the exhibition—is considered an integral part of the course. PLEASE NOTE: Students taking the examination as non-attending students are required to agree upon the examination contents with the instructor in advance.

Evaluation criteria
By the examination date, each student must upload comprehensive documentation of their work to the Faculty's Showcase platform: https://designart.unibz.it/. This documentation constitutes an integral part of the final assessment and must include photographic documentation of the project as well as a project abstract. The final grade is based on all exercises completed during the semester and will be assessed according to the following criteria: 1. Project work: Originality and conceptual strength Coherence and consistency Technical and aesthetic quality Accuracy and attention to detail Appropriateness in relation to context and intended use 2. Presentation Clarity and effectiveness of communication Awareness of the project's context and of the relevant discourses within contemporary design practice 3. Semester-long engagement Proactive participation throughout the course Quality of contributions and individual development Ability to work both independently and collaboratively

Required readings

Lorusso, S. (2019). Entreprecariat: Everyone is an entrepreneur. Nobody is safe. Onomatopee.

Lorusso, S. (2023). What design can’t do: Essays on design and disillusion. Set Margins’.

Sinclair, M. (Ed.). (2020). Studio culture now: Advice and guidance for designers in a changing world. Unit Editions.

Steiner, A. (1978). Il mestiere di grafico. Einaudi.

Supplementary readings

Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. The MIT Press.

Lupton, E., Kafei, F., Tobias, J., Halstead, J. A., Sales, K., Xia, L., & Vergara, V. (2021). Extra bold: A feminist, inclusive, anti-racist, nonbinary field guide for graphic designers. Princeton Architectural Press.

Mareis, C., & Paim, N. (Eds.). (2021). Design struggles: Intersecting histories, pedagogies, and perspectives. Valiz.

Paim, N., Bergmark, E., & Gisel, C. (Eds.). (2016). Taking a line for a walk: Assignments in design education. Spector Books.

Pater, R. (2016). The politics of design: A (not so) global manual for visual communication. BIS Publishers.

Pater, R. (2021). CAPS LOCK: How capitalism took hold of graphic design, and how to escape from it. Valiz.

Further information
Further info will be provided in class.