Design builds our environment and shapes our thinking and culture. The various domains of contemporary design share the same goal: improving the world around us and the way we live it. In this spirit, the Iuav Master’s Degree in Design offers three tracks to become a skilled and responsible designer in communication, product, and interiors. These tracks are designed to train designers with a broad professional profile, able not only to know how to do, but also to navigate cultural, social, technological, and economic contexts that are changing rapidly. For this reason, strong emphasis is placed both on project laboratories and on humanities, history, technology, and economics courses.
The programme maintains long-standing ties with the business ecosystem that enriches the Veneto region and Italy. In the studios you will work alongside designers who are actively engaged in professional practice and industry.
By the end of the two years, you will be able to develop a product, service, graphic artefact, or interior project, engaging with all the activities that contribute to the design process and starting from end-user needs. You will be ready to work immediately after graduation, also thanks to curricular internships in companies, professional studios, communication agencies, fab labs, and cultural institutions in Italy and abroad.
Communication Design track
Access to knowledge through the tools of visual communication is the core of this track. You will develop advanced design skills in information and interaction design to become a responsible, aware designer, able to approach major contemporary themes with critical insight. Topics include data visualisation, enhancement of environmental and cultural resources, signage and environmental communication, complex narratives, visual identity, and interface and user experience design, addressed through systemic design approaches in which the designer acts as the communication director.
Training is supported by Teaching Instrumental Studios (photography, multimedia, and print), where you will experiment with the communicative possibilities of technologies and tackle, with design tools and in collaboration with experts from other disciplines, key topics in contemporary communication, particularly within information design, print and digital publishing, and motion graphics.
Interior Design track
This track focuses on interior spaces for living, dwelling, and working, public or private, and on exhibition spaces, permanent and temporary. Whether a boat or an airport, an office or a museum, interiors are complex ensembles of tangible and intangible elements (light, colour, sound, environmental comfort conditions) that shape the quality of the relationship between people and space.
The track integrates interior design with environmental service and technology systems, and with the different types of physical, communicative, and interactive artefacts to be developed according to social, economic, and environmental sustainability criteria. It therefore addresses not only “space”, but also what it contains and its conditions of use. You will cultivate comprehensive attention to different scales and methods of intervention. Upon completion, you will be able to intervene in various types of spaces, private and public, understanding their technical, construction and functional features and proposing the most appropriate solutions for use needs, using design-specific disciplines and skills.
Design del prodotto track
This track focuses on integrated systems of products and services, attentive to social content and ongoing economic change. The goal is to experiment with cutting-edge technologies applied to contemporary material culture, considering Industry 4.0 transformations.
You will explore topics such as health, well-being and sport; ageing; accessibility to ICT; sustainable mobility; circular design; products designed specifically for renewable energy use; and upstream waste reduction. Training is supported by Teaching Instrumental Laboratories (metals, ceramics, wood, physical computing, etc.).
You will develop specific skills and competencies, contributing to innovation within Italy’s small and medium-sized enterprise system through techno-scientific innovations: sensors, RFID, Internet of Things, innovative materials, and nanotechnologies.
Ministerial degree code
LM12 Design
Qualification
Master’s Degree in Product, Visual Communication and Interior Design
Number of university credits
120
Duration
2 years
Coordination
Raffaella Fagnoni
Language
Italian
Location
Università Iuav di Venezia
Department
Department of Design Cultures
Entry requirements
Available places
160
Distribution of available places
Design for hydrogeological emergencies
Ark
by Francesca Maria Cimaglia, Giulia Fabro, Lorenzo Franciosi, Alice Osimati
ARK is a rescue and transport system for pets, designed to protect and safely move animals in the event of floods and other hydrogeological emergencies. The product supports rescuers in moving animals from homes to temporary kennels and/or other shelters.
Final project
From PNRR to PINQuA
by Vito Ardagna, Alberto Gava, Lucrezia Rosa Brusin
Two 32-page, omega-stitched publications aimed at communicating data on the PINQuA programme. The project offers an overview through a layout that changes point of view, inviting the reader to rotate the booklet entirely.
Transforming space through the concept of full and void
Visual Ecstasy
by Gioele Cornaglia, Elisa Lagna, Eleonora Mottola, Giulia Mutinelli
The project explores the relationship between full and void in the representation of reflected space, engaging with real space and the dynamic presences that animate it: first through suspension in the void, then fragmentation, and finally fracture. A play of roles and sensations.
The calls for applications for the academic year 2026/2027 are open.
Deadline for submitting the pre-enrolment application and paying the pre-enrolment fee is Wednesday 3 June 2026, 13.00 CEST.
The programme will be presented during a webinar on May 21, 2026 at 10.30 (Italian time).
To receive the access link, please register by filling in the Google form.
University contribution
For the 2025/2026 academic year, the total university contribution is 2,806.18 euro. Tuition is the same for all degree programmes and is divided into three instalments. The total amount varies according to students’ economic conditions and academic merit. More information on tuition fee reductions
Other fees
189 euro
regional tax
16 euro
stamp duty
Additional expenses
You may need to cover additional costs not included in tuition, such as accommodation, transport, and materials. For more information, see the Welcome Guide.
Scholarships
Students may access benefits through the Financial Aid Service: scholarships, tuition waivers, fee reductions based on the ISEE indicator, student loans, part-time collaborations, tutoring activities. 50% of Iuav students benefit from a reduction on the maximum tuition contribution. More information on Financial Aid benefits
The Study prospectus defines each year how the degree programme is organised, outlines the learning paths, and provides all the information you need to manage your studies. It is the official source of information throughout your university career.
This document sets out the rules governing degree regulations and the operating criteria of degree programmes, in compliance with laws and the Statute.
Student evaluation of teaching is one of the measures adopted by the University for teaching quality assurance, monitoring results and learning processes, and internal evaluation.
Students of all degree programmes (except newly enrolled students) complete an annual questionnaire that gives the University a broad overview of teaching, services, and overall functioning.
Main contacts for Product, Visual communication and Interior design
Santa Croce 601 – Venezia
This office supports the delivery of teaching for first- and second-cycle degree programmes.
The call center is open
Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm
Saturday, 9am to 1pm
(excluding public holidays)
Programme Coordinator
Teacher
