POLIMI GSoM
Building a Brand That Works Like an Experience.
Client: Polytechnic University of Milan, IT
Agency: Interbrand Milan
My role: Experience Design Director · Digital Creative Director · CX & UX Design Director
Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design 2022
Brand and experience design for POLIMI Graduate School of Management, repositioning the school around its purpose and global ambition.
I directed the digital identity, CX strategy & design, and digital product end-to-end.
1. Challenge
The old brand didn’t match the school’s ambition
POLIMI GSoM (formerly MIP) needed a clear, confident identity that reflected its global outlook and repositioned it in a crowded business education market.
The goal was to craft a brand that reflected POLIMI’s human-centered ambition, academic rigour, and progressive mindset. The design brief established a holistic approach to verbal, visual, and digital identity, ensuring coherence across all touchpoints.
2. What We Did
Strategy-led, experience-first, and built to scale
We grounded the work in human insights and strategic design.
We started with human truths: what students, alumni, and businesses expect from a modern school. We built a responsive identity system: verbal, visual, digital, and spatial.
From the logotype to the UX, we made every touchpoint part of the brand coherent, flexible, and scalable.
Then, we translated the brand into a digital product: we redesigned its entire information architecture and prototyped key user journeys across devices.
The result was a streamlined, responsive ecosystem ready for students, alumni, and corporate partners. I led the design direction across digital strategy, creativity, and delivery.
3. Outcomes
Award-winning, future-ready, and globally recognised
The new identity was rolled out across channels, aligning internal and external stakeholders.
The rebrand won a 2022 Red Dot Award and helped POLIMI GSoM strengthen its position in the international education landscape.
"This represents a very important development for our School, part of the great journey of change that began in 2020, when we redefined our purpose and core values and launched a new strategic plan.
Working with Interbrand has been an amazing journey, a path of listening, analysis and co-creation that involved hundreds of students, alumni, prospects, and corporate and institutional #partners. I am glad I had the chance to be part of this journey, and I am extremely proud of the work we have done together as a team.”
Sergio Oliveri, Chief Communication Officer at POLIMI Graduate School of Management
4. My Insight
A brand is how people feel, move, and act around it
You can’t separate brand from experience anymore. When strategy, identity, and UX are developed as one, the result is more than a rebrand. It’s a platform for future growth.
Designing for a single device or input type is no longer enough. Technology has expanded customer journeys, channels, touchpoints, and branded experiences.
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