Winter School social programme and events
Discover the amazing people in your class and uncover the wonders of Finland with exciting extracurricular activities.
Designing Brand Strategy Winter School
Join an intensive course focused on branding and design thinking. This project-based course allows students to work in small teams to redesign the brand of an established Finnish company.
Teaching period:
-
Application period:
1.10.2024 – 18.11.2024
Course format:
Campus
Duration:
2 weeks
part-time
Course level:
Undergraduate
Field of study:
Art and design
Credits:
2 ECTS
Organiser:
Aalto University
Tuition fees:
1170€
Today, the competitive business landscape demands strong, distinct brands to capture consumer attention and loyalty. Mastering brand strategy is crucial for making your brand stand out and resonate with the crowd.
In this course, both branding and design are defined broadly. Firstly, branding refers to the different tools that organisations use to differentiate themselves from competitors. These include company logos and names, as well as product designs, reputation, and communication.
Secondly, design refers to the ways in which novel products, services, and strategies are created when there are no clear optimal answers. These ways of working include empathizing with stakeholders, building and testing preliminary ideas, and iterating towards a promising solution.
Students will be introduced to various topics around research, design, and branding, including desktop research, semi-structured interviews, argumentation techniques, conceptualization, graphic design, and brand analysis.
Learn more about the social program
Aalto University Winter School teacher interview: "Great branding comes from solid substance"
We spoke with the teachers of the Winter School course Designing Brand Strategy to get a closer look at how students will learn to develop a successful and distinctive brand strategy through design thinking. This project-based course allows students to work in small teams to redesign the brand of an established Finnish company.
13 January-24 January 2025: Lecture weeks (on-site at Aalto University campus)
- Daily lectures at 9 AM - 12 PM (Monday-Friday)
- Group project work and workshops
| WEEK 1 | Monday 13 January | Tuesday 14 January | Wednesday 15 January | Thursday 16 January | Friday 17 January |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning (9-12) | Course session | Course session | Course session | Course session | Course session |
| Afternoon & evening | Optional social event | Optional social event | Optional social event |
| WEEK 2 | Monday 20 January | Tuesday 21 January | Wednesday 22 January | Thursday 23 January | Friday 24 January |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning (9-12) | Course session | Course session | Course session | Course session | Course session |
| Afternoon & evening | Optional social event | Optional social event | Optional social event |
After completing the course, students will learn to:
- Build knowledge in unfamiliar design settings by doing in-breadth and in-depth research, namely desktop research with source criticism and interview research with semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis.
- Do design in an iterative manner, where the student produces ideas and learns from their talk-back, newly emerging information, and others’ feedback.
- Understand reasons for design decisions using the Toulmin model for argumentation.
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Reflect and evolve their own way of doing design by looking back on the design activities undertaken and by assessing goal-solution fit.
Additionally, through project work on strategic brand design, students will learn to:
- Analyze organizations’ brands from various angles, such as vision and mission statements, products and services, as well as their competitors’ activities.
- Describe the characteristics of prominent Finnish brands.
This course will be taught primarily through active learning techniques, namely a guided project on strategic brand design and smaller problem-solving exercises.
The strategic brand design project will be open-ended to allow multiple plausible approaches and solutions, forcing students to make and reason for decisions under uncertainty. Smaller problem-solving exercises will be used to teach design activities and reasoning, such as customer research, brand analysis, and persuasive argumentation.
Course workload
Contact hours, intensive course participation 30h
Individual or team student work 24h
Total 54h (2 ECTS)
This course does not require previous experience in the topic. This course best fits beginner-stage designers, including for example both bachelor’s students in non-design majors, and early-stage bachelor’s students in design disciplines.
Participants must have completed a high school or vocational degree or equivalent by the time the course starts. However, they do not have to be a degree student at a university to participate in our courses.
Additionally, all winter school course students must be 18 years or older, as it is the legal age in Finland.
In your motivation letter, describe your motivation for taking this course. The recommended length for the motivation letter is 150-250 words.
More information about the motivation letter and application processMore information about the travel arrangements
If you need a visa, we recommend applying before November 1st.
- This is to ensure that we have enough time to process your application and that you have time to make the tuition fee payment, book a visa appointment and wait for the application to be processed.
- You can apply and be accepted to the courses after November 1st. In that case, we recommend that you pay at your earliest convenience so that we can deliver your invitation letter to you promptly.
Tuition fee
1170€ (Including VAT 25,5%)
- Unfortunately, Aalto University Summer School does not offer scholarships for participants.
- Please note that the course fees do not cover accommodation, daily meals, or transportation during the course
Social programme fees
Learn about the Aalto University Summer School cancellation terms. You will receive the full terms before making the payment and confirming the course participation.
Teacher Information
The course teachers, Antti Surma-aho (D.Sc., tech) and Henrik Ilvesmäki (M.Arch 2, M.Des, M.Sc.Arch), have complementary experience in research, design, and branding.
Surma-aho holds a doctorate in product development from Aalto University and currently works as a design researcher at Deloitte, making him knowledgeable in human-centric research in both academia and industry.
Ilvesmäki holds a Master of Science in Architecture degree from Aalto University and Master in Architecture 2 and Master in Design Studies degrees from Harvard University. He is the founder of Studio Ilvesmäki, an architectural design and brand consulting agency.
Surma-aho and Ilvesmäki approach design from different disciplinary backgrounds — engineering and architecture — creating a middle ground that combines mathematical-logical and artistic methods.
Summer School Team
Aalto University Winter School
Join the Aalto University Winter School in January 2025. The application period is open from 1 October to 15 November 2024.
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