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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.

Presentazione

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.

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.


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.

Attestato

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.

Date e orari

Duration:

- 17 Feb. 2025 - 31 Jul. 2026

Durata

60 ECTS.

Programma

Didactics
Attendance
The training course is based on a online learning model. Using an e-learning platform, students are able to access theoretical training modules that they can manage independently according to their own schedule.

Following this, the programme includes workshop activities, for which physical presence at POLI.design is strongly recommended but not mandatory, and a project work developed during a professional internship.

Training objectives
The Master in Design for Kids & Toys is organized in partnership with Assogiocattoli, which represents Italian manufacturers and distributors working in this industry. Italy generally excels in design (that means culture, method and practice of project and production) in several fields like fashion, food and creativity applied to multiple activities, but in the toy and childcare productions Italian design has yet to play a key role in building a recognizable identity.

The “Design System” and “System of Enterprise”, shows significant episodes but certainly not a coherent and recognizable oversight in children’s products, in furniture for children, in the game and in the toy sector. From this scenario it comes a need in poly-technical and multi-skill training.

Designers and, in particular, strategic designers have the role of create scenarios understanding the many aspects and skills that compose the system.

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.

If we think today about the “Design for Kids”, then we realize the number and type of skills needed to design a quality product aimed at the world of children.

Didactic Plan
The educational project is based on a blended learning approach that integrates theoretical training modules in e-learning with face-to-face workshop activities and a project work developed during a professional internship.

Didactic Modules
Theoretical training modules in e-learning mode:

Students, using thee- learning platform, follow all the e-learning didactic modules managing autonomously the times and the hours of use of the didactic contents with exercises for the assessment of learning contents. The theoretical training modules, delivered in e-learning mode, concern the following subjects:

strategic design and design thinking;
human centered design;
marketing and communication;
companies, the sector and the markets;
materials and technologies;
laws and safety;
pedagogy, psychology, cognitive ergonomics;
communication and distribution.


Face- to-face design workshops:

The workshops are intensive design sessions lasting four weeks each (the master’s program includes 2 workshops carried out with companies operating in the children-oriented sectors). Starting from the skills gained in the e- learning modules and during the workshops, the candidate will then be able to develop a project work during a professional internship lasting 3 months. During the internship, the candidate will be able to independently develop a final project based on the practical experience developed in the internship and the knowledge and interests gained through out the Master. The Final Project must be delivered in the form of a digital presentation and discussed in an exam session with the presence of the appointed Teaching Committee.