The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design program seeks to provide students with a rigorous, professionally focused education in visual communications. In addition to creating strong visuals, graphic designers create meaning and emotional responses in messages that influence choices we make in our daily lives. The program encourages a foundation of design research, forming a basis for visual creation with significant emphasis on creating unique concepts, creative solutions, and outcomes that are client specific.

Students will be challenged to demonstrate a broad understanding of issues in relation to cognitive, social, cultural, technological, and economic concepts.

As a result of successfully completing program requirements, students should be able to:

• describe, analyze, and interpret visual communications within the social, historical and theoretical contexts;
• understand software for print, web and new media and gain the ability to seek out new uses for emerging technologies;
• use advanced skills in typography, layout, information design, packaging design and other applications to create clear and dynamic visual communication;
• apply primary and secondary research methods in the conceptualization and solution of design problems; and
• present a succinct, cohesive, critically edited and interpreted body of work.

A grade of C or better is required in all major coursework, and a GPA of 3.0 or higher is required in the major for BFA candidates.