Graphic Design

Graphic design is the discipline of visual communication: using typography, imagery, colour and layout to convey meaning, guide attention and create experiences that work for people. It operates across an enormous range of contexts, from brand identities and editorial design to digital interfaces, motion graphics, packaging, wayfinding and environmental graphics. The discipline requires both creative confidence and technical precision, and the best graphic designers combine an original visual sensibility with a rigorous understanding of how design communicates and how it can be made to work.

At the University of Sunderland, this three-year full-time degree develops your skills as a creative visual thinker and communicator. You will study visual communication, motion design and visual effects, and experience design, developing both the conceptual range to generate original ideas and the technical proficiency to realise them to a professional standard. The programme is built around studio practice and project-based learning, which means you will spend a significant amount of your time designing, iterating and responding to feedback in the way that professional design work actually proceeds.

A sandwich year placement, a year abroad, and a work placement are all available, giving you significant professional and international experience that enriches your creative development and builds the industry connections that matter in a competitive creative market.

You will graduate with a portfolio of work that demonstrates your creative development and skills, which is your primary tool for demonstrating what you can do to employers and clients. Critical and contextual understanding of design history and theory is developed alongside your practical work.

Graduates from graphic design programmes move into graphic and visual design, brand identity, digital design, motion graphics, art direction, UX and interface design, illustration, advertising, packaging, and a wide range of other roles in the creative industries. Freelance practice is common, and postgraduate study is an option for those who want to pursue research or specialist expertise.