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More than ever, we live in a visually designed world. Visual forms continue to be redefined, restructured and developed to solve unique problems for target audiences across a variety of platforms.
The Graphic Design program at PennWest offers extraordinary opportunities for professional growth. Here, you'll acquire a strong foundation in composition and visual organization. You’ll learn formal principles, conceptual approaches, techniques and applications, technologies and processes, theory and criticism, as well as more experimental methods to graphic design.
As you become familiar with techniques and software applications, you'll become a problem-solver and find your own voice as a designer. You'll explore topics that range from graphic design history and theory to advanced typography and print and interactive design. Along the way, you'll become skilled at web design, motion graphics, corporate identity, publication design and packaging design.
The program culminates with the production of a final portfolio of work that represents your ability and focus on a particular area of graphic design. The curriculum is further enhanced through internships and client-based projects, workshops and visiting lecturers, involvement in the graphic design club and the student chapter of AIGA, portfolio reviews, studio tours, museum visits and participation in regional and national competitions.
You'll graduate ready to put your skills to work in a variety of industries.
Credits: 120
Contact:
Dietrich Wegner
dwegner@pennwest.edu
by the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD), which sets the standard for excellence in the field.
of instruction in the visual arts and arts education.
Internships and Design Practicum course allow you to interact with clients as you build your portfolio.
Approximately 24,800 openings for graphic designers are projected each year, on average, over the next decade. With PennWest’s graphic design degree, you’ll have the opportunity to enter the workforce well-prepared for success. Our alumni have rewarding careers at national and international companies, including:
Outcome #1
Students will demonstrate a high level of proficiency with the primary material, tools, technique, and technology used in their concentration area supplemented by experience with other media.
Outcome #2
Students will fully investigate in their work conceptual issues and expressive potential of their medium.
Outcome #3
Students will integrate aesthetic principles in the development of their own artwork.
Outcome #4
Students will recognize that the making and study of art can be approached from a variety of perspectives.
Outcome #5
Students will defend meaningful interpretations and critical evaluations about their own artworks and the works of other artists both orally and in writing.
Outcome #6
Students will construct informed discussion of art as an essential component of viewing, producing, and evaluating art.
Outcome #7
Students will explain cultural and historical contexts surrounding works of art in general and in their field of study.
Outcome #8
Students will conclude that art communicates, challenges and shapes cultural and societal values.
Outcome #9
Students will reframe their practices through experimentation.
Outcome #10
Students will organize and produce a resume, a written statement about, and an appropriate visual documentation of their work.
PennWest’s three campuses, California, Clarion and Edinboro universities, have been delivering award-winning online programs for more than 20 years. You’ll graduate with a degree from Pennsylvania Western University, completely supported by the expertise and community of learners on our brick-and-mortar campuses.
