GD6019 - Advanced Graphic Design

You will learn through a mix of tutor-led taught sessions, group-based creative and practical activities, workshops, and independent study. You will also engage with the module reading lists and directed learning tasks. Your learning will be further supported through group tutorials and individual tutorials. Furthermore, the core module Academic, Research and Career Development, delivered throughout Block 1, will ensure that, as a Level 6 entrant, you are fully supported and academically prepared for your year of undergraduate study.

You will be supported throughout the module through a clearly structured module brief that sets out week-by-week content, core activities, and detailed assessment information, including submission dates and platforms (Blackboard and/or Turnitin). Ongoing support is also provided through tutor contact in seminars, workshops, and one-to-one tutorials. At the end of the module, written feedback on your assessed work will identify strengths and areas for improvement, serving both as an evaluation of your performance and as feedforward to inform and develop your future practice.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:

1. Demonstrate the ability to critically analyse and evaluate advanced theories, research, principles, and practices and understand their role in contemporary graphic design practice (K&U 1).

2. Synthesise knowledge and use of traditional graphic design and contemporary digital tools, technologies, and typographic practices to produce innovative advanced graphic design outputs (K&U 2).

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

3. Critically apply advanced graphic design principles and practices to develop innovative, visually compelling, and conceptually strong design solutions for campaigns and future clients (IPSA 1).

4. Demonstrate the ability to synthesise research, creative experimentation, and conceptual thinking to produce professional design outcomes that address audience and social needs, cultural contexts, and commercial or social objectives (IPSA 3).


Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

5. Demonstrate the ability to reflectively communicate the ethical, social, and cultural responsibilities of creating graphic design projects and practice (PVA 2 and PVA 3).

This module will be 100% summatively assessed at the end of the module through the following submission:

Integrated Graphic Design Campaign (100%)

• Students will create a graphic design campaign (for a fictional client company) that incorporates core practices taught throughout the module (such as motion graphics, typography) in the context of factors such as accessible design and/or sustainable campaign impacts.

Students will produce a digital portfolio that showcases the campaign and elements of design (MLO 1, MLO 2, MLO 3, MLO 4).

• Students will also include a Design Process Journal that documents their integrated design process assessment work to include elements such as iterations, sketches, draft designs, research trajectories, and considerations of potential ethics, accessibility and sustainable aspects of the project (MLO 5).

Summative feedback will be provided to students through the appropriate teaching and learning platform (Blackboard/Turnitin). Formative feedback will be delivered across the module.

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This module provides you with the opportunity to explore engage with the core elements of practical, material, and digital elements of graphic design, and understand and evaluate the ways in which graphic design is advancing. You will develop a deep understanding of advanced graphic design theories and their application, explore contemporary design trends, technologies, and critically examine professional works of modern graphic design. Furthermore, you will investigate contemporary design trends and emerging digital technologies that are changing graphic communication.
The module provides you with a platform with which to hone your prior learning and develop new skills and understandings of advanced contemporary graphic design and the assessments enable you to produce examples of graphic communication (in written, digital, or mock-up forms of digital design), and produce reflections of design choices and strategic approaches, both of which enhance your creative and industry-informed professional knowledge. By the end of the module, you will understand how traditional modes of graphic design (such as typography) remain central and vital to visual communication but are evolving into new and innovative forms and expressions, and you will learn about, and practice cutting edge techniques and approaches from brand identity systems and motion graphics to sonic branding, and critically understand design challenges and established and emergent graphic design tools.