Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) is one of the largest private art and design colleges in Europe. The college was founded in Milan, Italy in 1966, with headquarters in Milan. After more than half a century of development, it has grown into an international education network spanning Europe and the Americas. As a higher education institution focused on design, fashion, visual arts, communication, and management fields, IED is committed to combining Italian design culture with a global perspective to cultivate future elites of the creative industry.
IED's brand identity carries its cross-border cultural DNA. Currently, IED has 7 campuses in Italy (Milan, Rome, Turin, Venice, Florence, Cagliari, Como), 3 campuses in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao), and 2 campuses in Brazil (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro), with a total of 12 campuses forming a global creative network. IED implements a "One School, Multiple Locations; Global Unified Standards" operating model. While following the group's unified educational philosophy, each branch flexibly adjusts courses according to local economic and social cultural characteristics, truly adapting to local conditions. The campuses consist of four schools: IED School of Design, IED School of Fashion, IED School of Visual Arts, and IED School of Communication.
Founding and Expansion (1966-1989): In 1966, IED was founded in Milan, the design capital of Italy. The Rome campus was established in 1973, and the Turin campus was unveiled in 1989. The Turin campus relies on the automotive industry and transportation design, becoming a core base for cultivating future automotive designers.
Global Expansion (1994-2010): Entering the 1990s, IED fully launched its internationalization strategy -- The Madrid campus was established in 1994, the Barcelona campus opened in 2002, the Venice campus unveiled in 2007, the Florence campus established in 2008, the Cagliari campus launched in 2009, and the Como campus established in 2010. By this time, IED's Italian campus map was fully established. Thereafter, IED's internationalization pace further crossed the European continent -- The successive opening of the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro campuses in Brazil extended IED's map truly to South America.
Deep Industry-Academia-Research (2011-Present): Since 2011, IED undergraduate courses obtained certification from the Italian Ministry of Education and can grant bachelor's degrees. In the mid-to-late 2010s, IED strengthened industry-academia-research cooperation with top global automotive companies, and transportation design became the school's flagship major. In 2025, IED deepened its China market layout through a 11-year student exchange and teacher visit cooperation with Sichuan Normal University. In 2026, on the 60th anniversary of founding, IED ranked in the top 100 globally in the QS World University Subject Rankings "Art & Design" field for the first time, ranking 78th, marking its formal elevation to a globally recognized top institution.
IED offers various types of courses including foundation, bachelor's, master's, summer, semester, and continuing education, taught in 5 languages, with over 50 courses in English.
Major Overview and Flagship Directions: IED's professional system is vast and complete. The Milan campus offers 10 majors including Creative Direction, Animation Design, Fashion Design, Brand Management, Product Design, Interior Design, etc.; The Florence campus focuses on Graphic Design, Art Management, etc.; The Rome campus is famous for its jewelry design major's deep cooperation with Bvlgari; The Como campus focuses on Contemporary Art Preservation and Cultural Heritage Restoration. Among the numerous professional branches, IED's flagship major is undoubtedly **Transportation Design** of the Turin campus. Benefiting from Turin's unique industrial environment as the world's automotive design capital, this major has become a sanctuary for car enthusiasts and designers worldwide. IED launches multiple full-size concept cars cooperating with global top brands every year and participates in the Geneva International Motor Show. This is its irreplaceable core advantage.
Teaching Model and Characteristics: All core courses of IED are based on "Learning by Doing", teaching content directly aligns with European market changes. The teaching team consists mostly of senior in-service designers from the fashion, automotive, jewelry, product, and other industries, ensuring the immediacy, cut-edge, and industry orientation of the teaching content. In addition, IED particularly emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration -- the collision and fusion between arts, design, technology, and management disciplines, to cultivate composite creative talents with "one specialization, multiple skills".
Enrollment Scale and Graduate Employment: IED welcomes about 10,000 new students from over 90 countries worldwide annually. About 2,000 are international students from the Far East, Central and South America, and Europe, with a very high degree of internationalization. The exchange and collision of diverse cultures formed IED's unique teaching vision. IED maintains long-term cooperation agreements with over 200 enterprises covering design, fashion, communication, and other fields. Official school data shows that about 90% of students can find jobs related to their major within a few weeks after graduation.
Academic Recognition and Tuition Range: In 2026, IED entered the top 100 globally in the QS World University Subject Rankings for the first time (ranked 78th in the Art & Design field), confirming its top position in the global design education system. Regarding tuition, depending on the campus, annual tuition ranges from approximately 8,900 Euros to 24,500 Euros, specific to the major and campus.
Although IED is a design college rather than a research institution, its mastered "Knowledge Education System" and "Industry-Academia-Research Model" also form a core competitiveness different from traditional universities.
Enterprise-School Cooperation Concept Car R&D Platform: IED is the only design college globally that independently develops and publishes a new full-size concept car every year. Every year, Master's students in transportation design will experience a complete "From Inspiration to Finished Product" practical process -- from hand-drawn sketches to modeling, from clay models to full-size physical model creation, finally publicly showcasing to the world at international car shows. Between 2021 and 2025 alone, IED cooperated with Mitsubishi to launch the Moonstone concept car (electric crossover, focusing on eco-friendly theme), cooperated with Suzuki to launch the Misano concept car, and cooperated with Modernin to launch the Hyunday Kite concept car. The Alisea supercar concept completed in cooperation with Pagani in 2023 further demonstrated IED's unmatched teaching depth in the field of Italian top supercar design.
Highly Integrated "Three-Stage One-Hub" Cultivation Model: IED's unique teaching system is called the "IED Method" -- The three stages of classroom theory, LAB lab projects, and enterprise projects directly proposed by brands are closely interlaced, finally culminated in strict graduation exhibitions or international exhibitions, forming an innovation closed loop. Graduation projects of automotive design students can not only be directly paid attention to by major automotive brands, but even obtain mass production investment.
IED's international layout is a model for design colleges. Aside from the 7 campuses within Italy, IED has campuses in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao in Spain, and Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, building an education network spanning Europe and the Americas.
In the Chinese market, IED has been deeply cultivated for a long time. IED Rome campus and Sichuan Normal University have established an international cooperation lasting 11 years, carrying out continuous cooperation through student and teacher visits, double degree joint training, short-term academic exchanges, etc. Since 2018, IED Rome accepts students from Sichuan Normal University every year, and students obtain a double degree recognized jointly by Italy and China after completing two years of study. IED has established official recruitment and service centers in many cities in China including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, etc.
At the level of global employment for graduates, IED's global "Legion" spreads across global automotive companies. Graduates of the IED Turin campus transportation design major are spread across Tesla, Pagani, Suzuki, Alpine, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and many other international famous design centers. In 2026, IED participated in the global automotive design leaders' closed-door meeting for the first time in Shenzhen, China, showcasing its highest education level in transportation design to hundreds of core decision-makers in the Chinese automotive industry, and announced two scholarship plans with 50% tuition reduction for Chinese design talents.
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary, IED is comprehensively moving to a new stage of "Deep Integration of Culture and Technology". In the era background of new energy and autonomous driving technologies reshaping car forms, IED's transportation design courses have surpassed traditional automotive exterior and interior design, comprehensively expanding to Mobility Design, Yacht Design, and Interaction Design, to cope with the disruptive changes in future transportation methods.
IED has launched a two-year "Future Mobility Design" master's course aimed at cultivating designers with forward-thinking, to welcome the profound changes in transportation methods that are about to occur. Regarding technology iteration, IED is strengthening the advanced application system of 3D modeling and visualization software, aiming to achieve an organic reconstruction of the teaching system combining Italian cultural heritage, frontier design, and digital tools.
At the market level, China is surpassing Europe to become one of the largest demand hubs for automotive design talent globally. IED plans in the future to further strengthen cooperation with design departments of automotive company headquarters in China (such as BYD, Geely, XPeng, NIO, etc.), gradually forming a channel for design talents to flow from IED classrooms to the Chinese automotive front line. The scholarship plan proposed in 2026 is a concrete embodiment of this strategic direction. At the same time, IED's "Design for Good" concept -- that design should not only be a commercial tool but should also become a core engine for solving social problems and ecological crises -- will continue to be an important part of IED's educational spirit.
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