Visual Communication Design - Art and Media, Master of Arts (Art and Design)

Description

The Master’s Programme in Art and Media Visual Communication Design (VCD) major 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. The VCD major 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.

As learning outcomes from the programme, you will be able to:

• Create and manage design projects with a renewed sensibility to both tangible and digital materiality, and experiment with data and computational elements in design projects where needed
• Solve complex issues of different media, aesthetic, context, expression, and convention, when communicating in modes like data, narratives, and/or written language
• Articulate and critically evaluate the traditions, references, and motivations behind your design choices and processes
• Consider issues of representation, diversity, and sustainability in visual communication
• Distinguish your professional role from your consumer role in digital and online environments
• Recognize good policies and your rights as a creative professional, and consider your responsibilities of care towards yourself, your colleagues, the public, and the environment
• Consider and imagine alternative modes of design practice and work
• Keep discussing, evaluating, and redefining the societal role and the shifting parameters of the contemporary Visual Communication Design profession

Language of instruction

In the Master’s Programme in Art and Media Visual Communication Design (VCD) major the language of instruction is English.

Tuition fees and scholarships

Aalto University’s tuition fee for master’s programmes taught in English is 15 000 euros per academic year. Tuition fees apply to citizens of countries other than those of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland.

Aalto University has a scholarship programme to support non-EU/EEA citizens who study in a fee-charging degree programme. The scholarship may cover 100% or 50% of the tuition fee.

More information on tuition fees and scholarships at Aalto University is available at the Scholarships and Tuition Fees webpage.

Structure of studies

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 major 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-organised 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 practice 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.

The Master’s thesis is a significant part of your studies and the second year of the two-year degree is mainly dedicated to thesis work. You will develop your thesis with the help and guidance of the MA Thesis Seminar, the supervising professor, and your thesis advisor(s). The thesis can either be a design project based on practice, or alternatively apply further research methods and theory, but it always includes a written part with references to literature. Your thesis project will be an opportunity to both strengthen and demonstrate your design skills and/or theoretical knowledge in a specialised area, and to position your practice within a specific domain or framework.

More information on the programme content and curriculum can be found in the Student guide.

Specialisations

Specialisation is built mainly through advanced studies, where students may choose courses.

Internationalisation

You will take part in an international and diverse learning community with students and staff with varied backgrounds. The major regularly invites international guests to give lectures or courses, or to conduct workshops. As a part of your individual study plan, you will have the possibility to spend a semester abroad as an exchange student in one of the university’s numerous partner universities, or to include an internship abroad.

Further study opportunities

A finished degree with a successful master’s thesis enables you to apply for doctoral studies in art and design, with the possibility of an academic career in the emerging field of practice as research.

More information on the Aalto Doctoral Programme in Arts, Design and Architecture: Doctoral programmes.

Career opportunities

As a graduate of the VCD major you will have the skills and knowledge to work as a design professional in visual communication design, either by developing your own practice, or with an established design agency or organisation. You will be also be prepared to work as an art director, design lead, or in another managerial role.

Research focus

The research in this programme is linked to several focus areas in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Additional information about research related to this programme can be found at the Department of Art and Media website.

Co-operation with other parties

Aalto University and the departments involved in the programme collaborate with many high-quality universities worldwide.

The student can take advantage of the studies within other Aalto University Schools, studies under the flexible study right agreement (JOO) within other universities as well as the major's international connections and student exchange possibilities.

Contact information

Learning services of the School of Arts, Design and Architecture

For enquiries regarding programme-specific application documents or studies in the programme, please contact Aalto ARTS Learning Services.

[email protected]

Admission Services

For enquiries regarding the application process, obligatory application documents or English language proficiency, please contact Admission Services.

[email protected]