Summer Intensive Studies Paris | Parsons School of Design

Acquire academic credentials and deepen your knowledge in one of the world capitals of culture: Paris. Our college-age students pursue full-time degree programs or build competitive portfolios to prepare for careers or advanced study, while adult students come to Paris to acquire new professional skills.
Students benefit from learning with Parsons Paris faculty, a project-based curriculum, and the resources and stimulating academic environment that only a top art and design educational institution can provide. All courses are taught in English.
Choose from programs in Paris, Cannes, and Florence!
Paris Intensives
Course Dates Paris Summer 1: June 2–24, 2023; Paris Summer 2: June 30–July 22, 2023

Location Paris, France

Schedule Approximately 9:00 a.m.–12:00 noon and/or 1:00–4:00 p.m.

Housing Included in tuition (see below)

Registration Deadline March 27, 2023 (payment deadline: April 15, 2023)

Ages 19+ or 18 with a year of college

Tuition Paris: $7,725 for one session; $14,950 for both sessions

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Courses
- The Business of Fashion
  
  Half-Day Course - Summer 1
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  This course is an immersive introduction to the fashion industries and strategies for managing them. Students explore the relationships between innovation, design, production, and marketing. The course also provides an overview of the Parisian high-end fashion market and its key actors, from designers to retailers. Through visits to Paris luxury stores and showrooms, students gain an overall understanding of today’s fashion business.
- Collaborations in the Creative Industries
  
  Half-Day Course - Summer 1
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  Collaborations in the Creative Industries is a course investigating how things work in the creative business world. Students are guided through the visual and performing arts, architecture, cinema, music, literature, and fashion, considering the history of strategies and today’s synergistic influences and investigating key players as they maneuver through our fast-paced global culture. We study the creative industries that form the essential bridge between art and commerce while addressing sustainability in the broadest sense of the word: environmentally and historically.
  Our objective will be to travel along the various roads linking the locked door of the design studio and the top secret boardroom, winning over the critics, fans, highest-bidding collectors, endorsers, adoring followers, and money-spending consumers. And as we raise questions about creativity and collaborative strategies required for success, students will develop a solid understanding of what makes these complex and highly creative fields tick.
- Explorations in Drawing
  
  Full-Day Studio Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  This course introduces students to drawing as both a fundamental part of the design process and an essential tool for media arts of all kinds. Students approach drawing as a way of thinking, a critical tool, and a means of observation, storytelling, and representation. Traditional and nontraditional methods, media, and theories of drawing are all explored.
- Explorations in Painting
  
  Full-Day Studio Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  This course introduces students to painting as both a fundamental part of the design process and an essential tool for media arts of all kinds. Students learn basic concepts of painting, such as color theory, composition, and techniques for using water-based paints. Drawing is also taught as a means of observation and representation. Traditional and nontraditional methods, media, and theories of painting are all explored. Time is set aside for students to develop a personal project.
- Fashion Communication
  
  Half-Day Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  This course is an immersive introduction to communication strategies in fashion and luxury companies. Students learn how to create and foster dialogue between a fashion brand and consumers. The seminars and workshops cover a range of topics such as semiotic resources for brand identity, advertising and event management, experiential marketing, digital and interactive marketing, fashion journalism, and fashion public relations in the digital age. In addition, the course offers a Parisian perspective of luxury company strategies and investigates heritage management strategies from a communications perspective.
- Fashion Design Process
  
  Full-Day Studio Course - Summer 1 and 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  This course introduces students to various approaches and techniques involved in the design process for fashion products. Students are encouraged to experiment as they research and find inspiration for a fashion collection and devise innovative 2D and 3D production methods for their fashion pieces. Working on projects individually and in groups, students develop fashion concepts for which they draw on the unique resources of Paris and explore how fabrication methods and color affect collections.
- Introduction to 2D Digital Animation
  
  Full-Day Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  Through short narratives and experiments, this course introduces students to digital animation as a way of bringing stories and inner worlds to life.
  Students master fundamentals of 2D animation, such as digital drawing techniques, timing, transitions, and sound effects. They learn how to work with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Premiere Pro. The focus of the class is on fresh narratives and perspectives, with an emphasis on process, concept, and experimentation.
  No drawing, writing, animating, or digital experience is necessary.
  As a final project, each student will make a film of 30 seconds to one minute.
- Introduction to Design and Management
  
  Full-Day Course - Summer 1 and 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non–liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  Students learn to approach management as a strategic process that combines design innovation and business knowledge. In collaborative projects, they develop problem-solving skills and familiarity with design strategies through the application of research methods, prototyping, and quantitative analysis. Emphasis is placed on developing an understanding of the European setting and perspective and the way entrepreneurs, business innovators, and designers operate at the intersection of design and management. Students engage in design thinking and business strategy exercises, applying these approaches in a broad range of enterprises and real-world business contexts.
- Photography in Paris
  
  Full-Day Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  Students master photographic techniques and learn about the aesthetics and theory of the photographic image. Course field trips to various Parisian neighborhoods provide points of departure for creative exploration of documentary, urban landscape, portraiture, and reportage. A variety of assignments, readings, field trips, and lectures encourage students to experiment with different modes of photography and inform a final project based on individual interests.
- Paris Design Safari
  
  Full-Day Studio Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (non-liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  This summer course provides an insider view of the design industry in Paris. Each week students visit locations in the city that specialize in different areas of design, ranging from creative entrepreneurship to design technology, from gastronomy design to human services. By interviewing practitioners at design firms, creative studios, artistic ateliers, showrooms, retail locations, co-working spaces, companies, non-profits, among others, students gain insight into the state of the field in Paris and Europe. From these interactions students will collectively create editorials, interviews, images, and video as documentation of their Safari exploration, as they craft the questions, interview designers, edit content and produce the daily posts.
- Paris: Fashion and Luxury
  
  Full-Day Course - Summer 2
  3 U.S. credits recommended (liberal arts)
  Language of instruction: English
  Today the discourse about cultural heritage and local patrimony is at the center of a variety of public and private activities involving design and fashion. Although fashion houses and ateliers have long participated in organizing events such as the Journées européenne du patrimoine, the concept of heritage has recently been employed in a new and sometimes controversial manner by private and public institutions. This course explores the field, looking at the intersections between the current discourses on heritage, patrimony, and memory—with particular attention to their relationship to design and fashion. Through visits to major Parisian fashion archives and talks by experts from private and public museums, the class will interrogate what fashion heritage in Paris is and the multiple forms it takes. Starting with UNESCO’s definition of and activities on cultural heritage, students investigate the tensions between the idea of heritage and patrimony; hierarchies and power in the identification of heritage; and the use of national, regional, and city identity in the construction of personal and collective memory.

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Paris Intensives

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