Visual Communication Design
Why Visual Communcation Design?
Studying Visual Communication Design at Stellenbosch University offers an environment that allows for the exchange of ideas and cross-fertilisation between different art forms, disciplines, departments and faculties on campus. As visual communication design is involved in all aspects of our lifeworlds these surroundings create a rich and rewarding learning experience for our students.
What will you learn?
Visual communication design is a broad term encompassing graphic design, information design, instructional design, visual storytelling, experience design and various products of cultural and visual information. Featuring a broad range of media and formats, each of these visual messages is designed with a specific function, purpose and audience in mind.
Design practitioners of the 21st Century are facing a multitude challenges in much broader and complex strategic contexts than ever before. Material, environmental and social changes require future designers to anticipate problems and solutions rather than solving only known problems. While technology is constantly changing and advancing design tools, the real pursuit for designers remains the same: to create content and meaning, and to make a positive contribution towards culture.
By encouraging a way of working that accepts the unknown and the unseen, the Visual Communication Design course focuses on optimising the designer’s ability to embrace uncertainty and rise to meet the challenges of the future.
The VCD curriculum includes, but is not limited to the following broad fields:
- Typography
- Visual narrative and storytelling
- Branding
- Bookmaking and bookbinding
- Digital production
- Web design
- Motion graphics
- Photography & video
- Sustainable design
- Inclusive design
- Experience design
Career opportunities
Our VCD course prepares our graduates to work in almost any field imaginable. Most of our graduates find themselves in established professions such as design studios and the advertising industry. Here they work as graphic designers, web designers, art directors, copywriters, studio managers, etc. Others work as graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, editors or researchers on books or magazines in the publishing industry. It is also not uncommon for our graduates to open their own design studios. Many work as freelance photographers, children’s picture book illustrators, and illustrator-writers of comics and graphic novels. Some of our graduates pursue careers in education as teachers, or do curatorial work where they plan exhibitions for museums and galleries, or act as educational officers. Our alumni have also carved niches in television, film and animation, working on lighting, on camera, as set designers or as producers.
For more information
Dr Karolien Perold-Bull | Coordinator: Visual Communication Design