The goal of the Master’s programme is to enhance the participants’ creative process, to add that missing part exactly as if learning a new language. 

In this way, a visual designer will complement his or her skills with the power of the word (written or spoken), and a storyteller will gain the power of images.

Held together by the common thread of storytelling, the course includes three defined areas and a series of cross-curricular workshops, the FUORIPISTAs.

The Master’s teaching methodology is defined by teaching moments, always project-based in nature, with presentations and reviews with faculty and colleagues given particular didactic relevance.

Each module consists of:

• Lessons
• Lectures
• FUORIPISTA workshops
• The Perfections – collective presentations and reviews

MODULES:

• WRITING
  • Fiction Writing.  A course on the foundations of writing techniques for short stories and novels.
  • Copywriting. The other side of writing, broadly understood as focusing on describing and discussing products.
  • Screenwriting. This course will help you discover the mechanisms, rules and secrets of film writing to turn a plot into a script. It complements the course on writing, training writers to be 360° storytellers.
• THE ORAL NARRATIVE
  • Orality & Pitching. From the basics of speaking aloud to public speaking, with a focus on constructing and exhibiting briefs and, in general, expressing one’s creative ideas in front of an audience.
    The course will conclude with a focus on pitching techniques: a hands-on workshop in which students will practice pitching a project in a few minutes in a preparatory workshop preceding the final presentation of their work in front of companies.
• THE VISUAL NARRATIVE
  • Perception. A course that will lead students to investigate our relationship with images, from the physical, neurological and biological reactions they elicit to the weight of cultural, social and historical context.
  • Composition. How are images constructed? What is the relationship between technique and intuition? Is it possible to decode an individual’s creative process? How do you build that room of wonders that contains and expands your visual heritage? And finally: how do you respond to the needs of the client and the type of audience?
  • Use. How are images used? Graphics, photography, video and illustrations, for example, are visual elements that modify and determine the narrative according to the environment in which they are used, which can be more traditional (fashion, food, publishing) or new digital frontiers (memes, TikTok, AI).
    The goal of this Master’s programme is to lead students to harness the potential of images and to identify the stylistic features of different fields to be able to integrate, reinterpret and rename them depending on the type of storytelling required.
• FUORIPISTA
  Four fleeting forays to deconstruct what we think we know in order to look at it from a new point of view.
  • Wonders. Training in amazement and estrangement by looking with new eyes at the already seen, through the discovery and exploration of creative worlds we thought we knew, be it Renaissance art or pop culture.
  • Vacillations. The precariousness of the world we inhabit in these times is disorienting. There are few certainties, many pitfalls and a myriad of possibilities. We will learn a dynamic balance that allows us to treasure these shocks to our systems.
  • Pressure. A hands-on workshop to save your skin in every situation. The workshop is a continuation of the FUORIPISTA dedicated to Instability. It will consist of surprise activities in which students will find themselves in “crisis” situations to be solved in the shortest possible time.
  • Gymnasium. Gymnasium. Readings, viewings, visits, travels, discoveries and explorations that include books, movies, series, comics, stores, museums and everything else you can look at. Stimuli to broaden one’s cultural background and enrich it with new insights that might become useful for one’s craft.

COURSE DELIVERY, ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION

The instructional approach of the Master’s programme is characterized by face-to-face lectures and workshops with compulsory attendance. Active class participation and the timely fulfillment of all assignments are required. In addition, students must develop a final project that will be evaluated by the committee in the examination period.

Classes will be held at Scuola Holden and IAAD.

During the academic year, Scuola Holden and IAAD. may organize educational visits to companies, exhibitions and museums, special workshops, and meetings with relevant professionals.

APPLICATIONS

Applications for the Master’s programme must include the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Cover letter
• Optional portfolio

The Master Coordinator, assisted by the Course Council, will evaluate the applications received.

Holden and IAAD. reserve the right to ask the candidate(s), when deemed necessary, for an additional interview. The result of the application will be communicated by the Guidance Office to each candidate.

Candidates who are unfamiliar with visual communication may enroll in the Preliminary Module in Graphic Design (February – April 2023), aimed at building the graphic design skills needed to enter the Master’s programme.

The Master’s programme includes a thesis project in collaboration with a company in the sector. The project is developed through an initial briefing with the partner company and subsequent discussion meetings with its representatives that continue until the final presentation of the thesis.

In order to offer its students the best opportunities on the market for creative professionals, IAAD. manages contacts between its students and the professional world, introducing its graduates to the top businesses in their fields. IAAD. has fostered relationships with companies that has resulted in a regularly updated database of businesses that continuously contact the Institute to find young, talented professionals to fill open positions.

The Master’s programme is proposed as an advanced training course for all professions related to Communication, among them:

• Communication consultant (per companies and institutions)
• Art director
• Copywriter
• Storyteller
• Content creator
• Photo editor