Graphic designers shape information into text and image through media. You will list, analyse and organise information. You will select, edit, manipulate images or create them yourself. You will use, edit, write texts and shape typography. You use techniques, both for traditional media or print media, or for the latest cross-media technological developments. You will use all this continuously to create your very own, artistic, communication product.
As a graphic designer you are both a specialist and a mediator. Specialist, because you are able to develop a creative or autonomous concept and design a meaningful visual form with the components listed above. Mediator, because you are the pivotal lynchpin in the publicity process as a creator, but also as an initiator and motivator. From this central position you will develop strategies to reach your audience and to take them with you into the story you want to tell, and give your client an identity.
What will you learn at the academy?
The connection between the profession and an innovative, open, individual and artistic outlook are at the heart of graphic design. You will learn how to develop the "tools", knowledge and skills required for the profession and use them for your personal design mentality. Your personal design mentality entails creative research, the desire to be innovative and bring innovation to the world around you, to experiment, to self-reflect, to adopt a critical attitude to the media, and to think and act in cross-media terms.
As a graphic designer you visualize the message and are responsible for it. You may sometimes be the initiator of the message. In this case, design and art almost merge. You develop the form in which a message will go out into the world. You design the experience that goes with the message.
After completing our study programme, you will be equipped to start your own business, or work as a freelancer or at a design agency. You will design house styles and decors and design for magazines, books, newspapers, websites, leaders, and posters. Your designs will appear in the public arena, on textiles, on the internet and on new media carriers such as the iPad.