Unit 1: Introduction to visual communication design
This unit focuses on using visual language to communicate messages, ideas and concepts. This involves acquiring and applying design thinking skills as well as drawing skills to create messages, ideas and concepts, both visible and tangible. Students practise their ability to draw what they observe and they use visualisation drawing methods to explore their own ideas and concepts. Students develop an understanding of the importance of presentation drawings to clearly communicate their final visual communications. Through experimentation and exploration of the relationship between design elements and design principles, students develop an understanding of how they affect the visual message and the way information and ideas are read and perceived. Students review the contextual background of visual communication through an investigation of design styles. This research introduces students to the broader context of the place and purpose of design. Students are introduced to the importance of copyright and intellectual property and the conventions for acknowledging sources of inspiration. In this unit students are introduced to four stages of the design process: research, generation of ideas, and development of concepts and refinement of visual communications.
Unit 2: Applications of visual communication within design fields
This unit focuses on the application of visual communication design knowledge, design thinking and drawing methods to create visual communications to meet specific purposes in designated design fields.
Students use presentation drawing methods that incorporate the use of technical drawing conventions to communicate information and ideas associated with the environmental or industrial fields of design. They also investigate how typography and imagery are used in these fields as well as the communication field of design. They apply design thinking skills when exploring ways in which images and type can be manipulated to communicate ideas and concepts in different ways in the communication design field. In response to a brief, students engage in the stages of research, generation of ideas and development and refinement of concepts to create visual communications.