Discover Communication Design

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Dr. Neil Heslin: Hi my name is Dr. Neil Heslin and I'm the associate dean of communication design here at RMIT. We have three postgraduate programs and one undergraduate program in the discipline.

Dr. Tony Roberts is program manager of the undergraduate degree and I'm presenting on her behalf today. I'll tell you a bit about our RMIT's communication design undergraduate program. I'll explain some of the key learning outcomes of each degree, the structure of the programs and the kind of projects you will expect to work on as a student.

It's my privilege to be a part of the school or design community at RMIT and we'd love to welcome you into the communication design program.

Before I start I'd like to acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unseeded lands we conduct the work of the University. RMIT respectfully acknowledges their ancestors and elders past present and emerging and while we conduct our work remotely I want to pay my respect to the wider unseeded lands of this nation.

The Bachelor of design, communication design at RMIT will help you work towards shaping communication across all aspects of contemporary society it will prepare you to be a locally and internationally aware communication designer capable of working across a range of domains including graphic design advertising branding and illustration. You'll be learning design skills in a studio based facility where you'll develop visual strategies and contribute to all phases of problem solving the major areas of study include communication strategies conceptual thinking design process mania publication typography and strategic branding we're the number one design university in asia-pacific and number 11 in the world amongst other partners we're the official design partner of the National Gallery of Victoria the NGV and we have exchange partners with top ranking global universities like for example Parsons School of Design in New York City so you'll be happy to know there is no ATAR for our program.

It is a communication design program and we look at your folio and your response to key questions about design and its role in society in our assessment so make sure that you look at that selection task online and you thoughtfully fill it in. My advice would be to get help from your peers perhaps teachers from secondary school if you're coming from that or vocational education if you come from that pathway get advice on to what projects you include and ensure that the imagery is good quality there's also a prerequisite if you're English as a second language and you can check those requirements online so if you've just recently completed other studies in design then you can achieve advanced standing into the undergraduate one of these opportunities is the associate degree in graphic design offered here at RMIT University if you've completed this qualification you can come into the program with credit as well as that there are other pathways it's important to check what pathways are available online as these do become renegotiated so the core structure of The Bachelor of design communication design is a three year degree in first year you go through the fundamentals of communication design. We have large 24 credit point courses image and identity and studio one and we have smaller 12 credit point courses like communication design studies color and information design intro to publication design and typography in design so that first year really sets you up remaining two years of the degree and over those remaining two years your complete four more major studios and these really are the backbone of the program studio two three four and five now what is studio 2 what is studio 3 well each of those 24 credit point courses that offers up to 16 sometimes even 20 different options for studios you can select those studios are very varied and they're offered by industry-leading practitioners I'm gonna talk about the studios later you can see in this slide that there's also university electives there are 4 12 credit Point University electives that you can take during your study and these go across the university so although there we've got examples advertising media animation cinema studies etc that's just the start.

You can do a language you can do programming you can do artist books at the School of Art so you've got this very wide range of electives that used wisely really almost create a minor for your degree we base a lot of our education with our industry partners mainly our industry partners come in to studio and they work with us on developing those studio courses.

I'll show you some examples where we work with an industry partner they come in with a real-world problem and you work on that in a project-based manner with your lecturer these allow us to connect to local and overseas opportunities they lead through to work placements with those industry connections. We also have competitions and we have industry advisory committee who come in judge student work offer awards at the end of the year the program is tightly connected into industry and offers those connections and networks as a large part of the experience of the degree. Many of the studios involve field trips and interactions with industry connections and also you'll receive mentoring and lecturing by industry practitioners we're number four in Australia for our partnerships with employers, we're number five for graduate employment and in 2019 our students undertook eleven thousand six hundred and ninety eight work integrated learning placements and these are really valuable to your degree because they really enable you to graduate as work ready again our industry partners you can see here Acme Adobe the NGV these are major players in the design landscape and they come in and support us at times like Adobe they come in with tutorial support with the NGV we're partnering for the book fair we're also partnering in design competitions Acme we're doing cutting-edge research which then leads through two studios I want to talk a little bit about our studio structure as I said it's the backbone of the program so industry based design studios explore the contribution of design in diverse contexts we divide these into three streams crafts around particular design forms and creative making strategy is a big-picture strategic design for specific audiences and future's new contexts where design is making a difference so the first stream of studio options is craft where we focus on particular design forms and creative making the example here is a high-end packaging design but the craft stream offers many opportunities to look at contemporary design practice and to stretch yourself and your skills the example here visual voice was a studio that involved research into visual thinking from social cultural historical and contemporary effectives crafting imagery is thinking through image making the strategy stream provides big picture strategic design for specific audiences the project here is an advertisement campaign that addresses social and political issues hospitable is a studio that thinks about how authentic hospitality offerings can be crafted what role does communication design play in Melbourne hospitality scene the third stream futures looks at new contexts where design is making a difference the project example here is an exploration of interactive storytelling for the iconic Queen Victoria Market as it undergoes renewal. Another example project what is a book relies on research underpinning a studio driven by the urgent need to discover new publication design practices that permit the fluid movement between print and digital experiences.

So I think you can see now how our industry partners join with us to build this studio content and provide those real-world project based experiences. So here's a student profile for Molly yang who graduated recently and she says during my design studies. I undertook placements at a design studio and at RMIT through these placements I was able to design for professional clients and respond to feedback they prepared me for both potential future employment within the corporate world and for designing in a boutique studio. I love what I do because I get to mix creativity with functionality.

That's great insights from Molly I would highly recommend that you take advantage of the exchange available while you're in the degree RMIT has partnerships with 215 universities around the world and you can see from this map the extent of that. We offer exchanges globe to many key partners also we work with those partners in terms of developing Studios developing research opportunities and they feedback into our teaching so the global emphasis of the program is an important one to take advantage of from the moment you start until you graduate. I want to talk a little bit about career outcomes so communication design is now an expanded field we have the more traditional roles art director graphic designer communication designer but it's expanding all the time out into web user experience design interaction design and new areas like service design experience design beyond even this into exhibition design so there's a lot of opportunities out there and it's important while you're in the program that you're focusing yourself and our final course being capstone actually allows our students to do this. So, our 2020 one orientation week is on 22nd to the 26^th of February in 2021 and classes begin on the 1st of March 2021. I welcome you to get online have a look at the program, look at the important dates, look at when the selection tasks are due.

Let me finish up by saying thank you for taking the time to hear about our excellent program here at RMIT. For more information about communication design studies at RMIT

Check out our website or call study at RMIT on 9925 2260.

Take care, stay safe and all the best.

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