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About the programme
Graphic Communication Design is a 2-year Master's programme at the Royal Danish Academy. Students are expected to take responsibility for own progression, attend all planned teaching activities and actively contribute to a good study environment within the physical, social and professional framework provided.
Programme description
Programme description
During your studies, you will engage in a diverse and comprehensive understanding of visual communication. You will learn to adopt a critical approach, questioning existing standards and explore themes within society through open research agendas and iterative processes, reflecting on both the stakeholders and contexts that the design addresses. These projects lead to opportunities for you to work individually or collectively with external partners in a critical exploration of design outcomes.
By combining elements of the applied arts tradition of graphic design with a critical, experimental and conceptual approach, you will have the opportunity to deepen and expand your competencies in disciplines like editorial design, visual identity, type design, interaction design, data visualization, image making and illustration.
You will be the driving force in the progression, direction and specialization of your education. In other words: What you bring to the table is essential and will determine the unique characteristics of your professional profile.
The master's degree programme is a 2-year full-time education comprising 120 ECTS points. A semester's full-time study is prescribed to comprise 30 ECTS points, corresponding to a workload of 825 hours per semester. Students are expected to study 40–45 hours per week during all semesters.
Structure and Content
Structure and Content
The level of self-initiation will gradually increase throughout the four semesters.
1. semester: Positions. Explorations. Reflections.
The semester focuses on developing an outset for each students’ distinct positioning and agenda as a designer and master student within the field of visual communication design. Through the lens of their personal agendas and positions, students explore tools and technologies with which professional designers work. Emphasis will be placed on exploring the nature of ‘designed visualities’ in relation to messages and narratives. In the last part of the semester students work with written and visual argumentation as an integrated part of a design practice.
2. semester: Perception. Culture. Identity.
The semester explores the role of graphic communication design in knowledge and culture production. Psychological aspects of perception related to visuality‚ identity and culture are introduced while the students undertake projects that explore the notion of ‘designed identities’. The role and responsibility of the designer is addressed in the context of data visualization, where the focus is on how the design of infographics can make the invisible visible and the complex comprehensible. Ending the semester, students will undertake a self-initiated project reflecting on their interests and role as designer, and in parallel take part in study group where reading and discussing relevant literature takes place.
3. semester: Inquiry. Argumentation. Experiments
The semester focuses on developing the students’ abilities to work with complex information and argumentation. Emphasis is placed on strengthening awareness about the consequences and requirements of designing for specific formats, media and contexts. Students explore design as a means of questioning and debating societal challenges, focusing on problem finding rather than problem solving. As part of their specialization, students practice framing complex design projects, before undertaking a larger independent written theoretical assignment. To further inform a distinct design approach students undertake a self-formulated, open-ended research project where they investigate tools, technologies, and materials related to their individual specialization.
4. semester: Master’s Project
In the fourth semester, students focus solely on larger self-initiated and self-directed project within areas of individual specialization.
Language
Language
The programme is taught in English.