COURSE CURRICULUM

Design plays a vital role across today’s media landscape, influencing everything from traditional graphic and layout design to social media branding, thumbnails, video design and broader digital communication practices. The Visual Communication and Design Specialization equips students with a deep understanding of visual communication, graphic design principles and the strategic use of imagery, typography, color and layout. Emphasizing a process-driven, problem-solving approach, the specialization encourages students to create real-world design solutions—from social campaign posters to digital media assets—while gaining practical experience in graphic design, UX design, content creation and design entrepreneurship. Alongside this specialization, the core and major subjects provide a strong interdisciplinary foundation in media theory, global communication and cultural analysis. Students explore how globalisation and transnational media industries shape cultural communities and communication practices, developing the ability to navigate cross-cultural interactions in diverse workplaces. Ethical and legal frameworks are examined in depth, fostering awareness of how language, representation and media choices can impact individuals and communities. Students also engage in hands-on media-making through idea mapping, prototyping and digital artefact creation, applying innovation and experimentation to real-world contexts. Research-focused subjects introduce UX research, co-design, ethnography, storytelling and other methods used to study lived experience, while emphasising ethical knowledge production and participant engagement. Additional major subjects highlight the media’s role in shaping inequalities and driving social justice movements, allowing students to investigate issues such as resource exploitation, refugee crises, celebrity activism and orientalist discourses. Students further develop niche expertise through ethnographic study of audience perspectives and content creation practices, building entrepreneurial and creative capabilities. Finally, subjects addressing the future of work explore the impact of automation, shifting workplace boundaries and wellbeing, using reflective narrative techniques to help students understand professional identity and prepare for rapidly evolving media careers.