This programme does not exist anymore. Last possibility to graduate from this programme is by 31.10.2023.

Visual Communication Design is now one of the majors of Master's Programme in Art and Media. Please see the information for Major in Visual Communication Design in the Master's Programme in Art and Media page.

Master's Programme in Visual Communication Design is organized by the School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

The Visual Communication Design programme (VCD) is an international learning community committed to investigating new modes of action within visual communication. As a critical response to the contemporary conditions, the studies enable you to reconsider the established notions of graphic design. The programme supports you in rethinking and redefining your own design practice, in order to situate it in wider societal and environmental frameworks. By providing the competence areas of information design, visual narratives, and type & written language, the curriculum encourages you to turn your design practice towards the public and the sustainable, and towards multiple and diverse knowledge domains.

Content of the studies

The VCD programme provides you time and space to redefine your individual design approach, with continuous backup from community, collaboration, and peer learning. The studies support you in this with a combination of theory and practice.

Engaging with diverse literature, writing, and discussion encourages you to evaluate the role of visual communication in the society and the environment, and the discursive and material properties that converge in your design practice. Critical perspectives shed light on urgent political issues, such as representation, diversity, and social and environmental justice. Intensive courses introduce you to necessary tools and skills to accomplish contemporary design projects, whether you are into data, visual storytelling, or typographic expression.

In the form of extensive studio courses, the programme particularly supports three competence areas crucial for a visual communication designer: information design, visual narratives, and type & written language. Specified in your personal study plan, selections within these competence areas enable you to either deepen or broaden your skills and knowledge. Special attention is also given to the notion of publishing, which plays a central role in pursuing a self-organized practice, and in keeping communication design close to the public.

The core of your studies consists of the overarching practice seminars, where you stop to think and share your learning with others. In the first year Design Practice Seminar, you reflect on your own design work and build a framework of references by assembling your individual Designer’s Archive. In the second year Research Practice Seminar, you work on the development of your own research project that leads to your master’s thesis. The studies enable you to update your skills and knowledge whether you aim for a professional design practice in an applied or self-organized context, or to continue to doctoral studies.