Project – Product – Promotion. International Collective for Design Erasmus Project

Project Title

Project – Product – Promotion. International Collective for Design

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Creativity and culture; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

The main idea for this international project was initiated during an International Workshop at the Spanish University: Escuela Superior de Diseño de La Rioja, in November 2019. This event gathered professors with ‘mobility’ means, participating, teaching, interacting, exchanging and discussing topics with peer academics from around the world.

Within these discussions many issues were debated including the subject of student autonomy and effective group participation, how contemporary students have some limitations or lack of consistency with team practices. As academic teachers in one form or another, we have witnessed poor autonomy amongst young students, lack of essential skills and disorganised group interaction. This was a recurring topic that inspired the objective of the project proposal, with the need to develop innovative teaching methods to improve students interest, skill and ambition within their creative areas.

With this, we would like to propose: an initiative to implement a creative work situation for students of art and design faculties to orientate better with team working scenarios and prepare students for more efficient and effective cooperation methods within their studies and future careers.

In response to this problem, we propose innovative didactic methods (in the form of several workshops) with the main goal of preparing students for effective professional cooperation and to increase their value in the labor market.

An international team of teachers with diverse specialities would be a positive way to promote the best outcomes for this project.

Four academic teachers from three Erasmus + partner countries intend to represent various specialisations in the art and design fields:
1. Marta Miaskowska, Lodz University of Technology, Poland – Specialised in Video Forms.
2. Bilge Kınam, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Turkey – Specialised in Building Visual Identity.
3. Jeremy Hugh Aston, Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Portugal – Specialised in Product Design.
4. Marta Varzim Miranda, Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Portugal – Specialised in Photography and Digital Image. processing.

The main activity of the project group is to create a model plan for an Interdisciplinary Cooperation Workshop (ICW) and implement it within the three cooperating institutions (based on the analysis of experience) as vell as to develop an educational method that can be disseminated in the form of scientific and educational materials.

The plan of the ICW will be created in a descriptive form with the involvement of all project participants, under the main editing of project manager Marta Miaskowska. This plan will be visualised in the form of a guide (nº1).
This guide will go to students, presenting a series of three workshops according to the created plan.
All workshops will be conducted by the same group of five teachers representing different specialisations:
1) Marta Miaskowska – Promotional Video Materials
2) Bilge Kinam – Visual Identification
3) Jeremy Hugh Aston – Product Design
4) Marta Varzim Miranda – Promotional Photographic Materials
5) Special guest – Melanie McClintock (College for Creative Studies, USA) – Colour and Material Design.

Workshops will take place once per semester at each of the partner institutions: Poland, Portugal, Turkey. The workshop participants will consist of a group of 5-6 local students selected from a min. of 3 different specialisations.

The main assignment for one of the workshops is to make an original product to market and sell(simulation), with the following constraints:
1. Must be a team effort (no single author allowed).
2. The product must be ready and on sale within 10 days.
4. Made within the hosting facility, tools and means available.
5. The tools should be mobile (e.g. small and handy lighting, go pro camera or telephone, laptop with Adobe package).
6. Each workshop must end with a presentation of effects in the form of an exhibition at a given university, to which other students, employees and guests from outside the institution will be invited.

After the workshop a Guide(Nº2) and a book method will be created along with documentation of all cases. This publication will be forwarded to art universities in all partner countries.

The project will bring multidimensional benefits:
1. Participants will be prepared for teamwork and their value on the labor market will increas.
2. Students of the university where the workshops take place will witness inspiring activities that they will be able to repeat on their own based on the information materials created.
3. Institutions and teachers cooperating in the project will be able to introduce the developed methods into the permanent curricular programme in the future.
4. Teachers participating in the project will expand their competences with new teaching experiences.
5. Artistic majors at the universities of the consortium will receive teaching materials to introduce a new innovative teaching meth

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 130047 Eur

Project Coordinator

POLITECHNIKA LODZKA & Country: PL

Project Partners

• ESKISEHIR OSMANGAZI UNIVERSITESI
• CENTRO DE INVESTIGACAO E FORMACAO EM ARTES E DESIGN LDA
• Escuela Superior de Diseño de La Rioja