What is it and why should I do it?
This future-focused course explores the appearance and function of objects, environments, messages, and experiences. Visual Communication Design is a subject that examines how ideas, information and messages are conveyed in the fields of communication (graphic), industrial (product) and environmental (architectural) design(VCD) cultivates future-ready designers with a critical and reflective eye, a refined aesthetic sensibility, and the skills, knowledge, and mindset to tackle real-world challenges.
You'll explore how visual language communicates ideas, solves problems, and influences behaviour. Through type and imagery, you'll learn to craft innovative designs tailored to specific audiences and contexts.
In Units 3&4 students write and respond to their own brief. Below are links to the best VCD work from across the state:
- Top Designs 20222025
- Top Designs 20212024
- Top Designs 20202023
What will I do in class?
Unit 1: Finding, reframing and resolving design problems
Students are introduced to the practices and processes used by designers to identify, reframe and resolve human-centred design problems. They learn how design can improve life and living for people, communities and societies, and how understandings of good design have changed over time.
Practical projects focus on the design of messages and objects, specifically brand strategy and sustainable product development. Students participate in critiques, learn to apply phases of the VCD design process, and use methods, The VCD course places an emphasis on drawing as a means of communication and as such students develop a range of drafting/image-making skills. Students engage with observational and visualisation drawing methodologies as well as two-dimensional and three-dimensional technical drawing conventions. They utilise a wide range of media (including the Adobe suiteIllustrator) and materials to demonstrate their skills both manually and digitally.
The VCD course investigates creative, critical and reflective modes of thinking by placing the student in the role of a designer. Students progressively explore the design process and examine its application to produce design solutions in relation to design needs that are articulated in specific briefs.
The topics covered in VCD are:
- Observational and visualisation drawing
- Technical drawing conventions (used in industrial and environmental design)
- Design elements and principles
- Design contexts
- Typography
- The design process
- Analysis in design
. They also consider how design decisions are shaped by economic, technological, cultural, environmental and social factors, and the potential for design to instigate change.
Unit 2: Design contexts and connections
Practical tasks focus on the design of environments and interactive experiences. Students adopt the practices of design specialists working in fields such as architecture, landscape architecture and interior design, while discovering the role of the interactive designer in the realm of user-experience (UX). Methods, media and materials are explored together with the design elements and principles, as students develop spaces and interfaces that respond to both contextual factors and user needs.
Students also look to historical movements and cultural design traditions as sources of inspiration. Design critiques continue to feature as an integral component of design processes, with students both giving and receiving constructive feedback. Students learn about protocols for the creation and commercial use of Indigenous knowledge in design, and consider how issues of ownership and intellectual property impact the work of designersClick here to listen to Doug talk about Visual Communication Design.
How much homework will I have?
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