L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique is a private institution of higher education in design, managed by the Chamber of Commerce of Nantes.Two main activities :
- A five-year course leading to a master degree in Design, acknowledged by the French ministry of Higher Education, with three main options, Product Design, Hypermedia Design, Space Design.
- Undergraduate courses in apprenticeship leading to French national diplomas in Product and Space Design.
The 5-year curriculum is structured in three main parts :
- First year is a discovery of the different design activities,
- Second year and third year are built around a major option, product, hypermedia or space design, and a series of shared common courses. It is meant to develop both creative abilities and technical skills.
- Fourth and fifth year are stressing notions of project management and business strategy, leading to a final evaluation of the professional skills based on both a final thesis work and an internship period.
50 to 60 graduates are coming out every year, 15 to 20 of them being former hypermedia students. 85 % of our graduates work as designers within a period of four months after the graduation, mainly as inhouse designers.Design teaching is mainly based on practice based projects, most of the time in partnership with industrial partners.Most projects and courses related to interaction design and new media take place within the “Hypermedia” option of the Master curriculum.Students can participate in either hypermedia only projects or hybrid projects, mixing up hypermedia and product design students, gathered by teams.Projects can be organised as long term projects (up to one semester) or one week workshops.Undergraduate hypermedia projects are managed by Grégoire Cliquet.The institution has also set a strong international policy for some years now.Up to 60 students are sent abroad every year, and 25 to 30 foreign students are welcomed every year.The institution is also involved in business oriented activities and research activities.We are now interested in three main areas of research :
- Ambient Intelligence : alternative ways of interacting, tangible user interfaces and context-aware computing
- Datatainment : Data visualization, human networks and social interaction
- M-Services : services in mobility, innovative usages and public space.
Research and international projects are managed by Frederic Degouzon.Website : http://www.lecolededesign.com/
At the beginning of the 1980s, Domus Academy established itself as the first post-graduate school for design in the world. The institution is a place for advanced training and research into the processes utilized for industrial creativity, the scenarios of aesthetics, consumer tastes, architecture and the design of spaces, the design