The undergraduate program in graphic design offers a professional degree with a well-rounded scope covering the multiple practice areas of the discipline. The curriculum focuses on a solid training in the theoretical, practical and technical aspects of graphic design, while promoting a socially responsible practice and an awareness of both local and international developments in the field. The goal of the program is to produce graduates with expert design proficiencies, grounded in historical knowledge and capable of adapting graphic and visual tools to the changing demands of the design industry. Students develop intellectual and critical thinking skills and contribute to aesthetic and technological innovations by generating ideas in response to a wide range of design challenges. The program is committed to the role design plays in the multicultural and multilingual contemporary regional context and provides a creative teaching and learning environment to address these issues.
Program Description
The Graphic Design
Program is comprised of a total of 139 credit hours normally taken over four
years, including three summers. The curriculum is structured as follows:
- Two foundation years, first and second, with core requirements in design, typography, representation techniques, digital media, and history courses, which offer students basic skills and knowledge in design and related areas.
- An advanced year, the third year, with core requirements in advanced design, digital media, and theory courses, reinforced by the field electives and General Education requirements.
- A final year, the fourth year, with a one-year long design project and advanced electives.
Program Learning Outcomes
Graphic Design students graduate from their undergraduate program with a thorough working knowledge of how to:
- (Design) Develop original design solutions in the fields of publication, identity, packaging, communication and environmental design that integrate local, regional and global concerns (both social and cultural) into projects that are creative, feasible, and ultimately realizable.
- (History/Theory) Formulate critical positions in their design practice and in written communication drawn from knowledge of the history and theory of art and visual culture.
- (Representation) Demonstrate the ability to communicate a design concept clearly through the stages of its development process using a range of tools and technologies, including sketching, printmaking and multiple media.
- (Typography) Display a full working knowledge of the macro and micro aesthetics of typeface design with particular focus on issues of typography in the Arab world.
- (Digital Media) Create time-based media and responsive interactive media to current international standards using the digital tools of today including TV graphics, title sequences, animated logos and promos, web pages, e-magazines and mobile app designs.
- (Professional Practice) Demonstrate basic business acumen and familiarity with the legal and ethical dimensions of the profession, including the ability to organize design projects and to work productively as a member of a team.
- (General) Advance with competency into the graphic design profession at entry level in their area of specialization.