Great design provides for dynamic touch-points that serve to connect with people through a visual language that is highly focused and contextually appropriate. Designers seek to inform, immerse, allow for exchange, embed meaning, persuade, inspire, provoke, validate, and entertain people. As technology opens more avenues for communication, the design process is becoming increasingly more complex, demanding stronger and more thoughtful visual solutions from designers. It is the intention of the Visual Communication Design faculty at the University of Texas Arlington to educate our students effectively and creatively by providing them with a solid framework for communicating ideas visually to an international community.
The Visual Communication Design curriculum is based on the understanding of problem solving relative to assigned, increasingly complex projects and experiences. Student designers are encouraged to actively research, analyze, plan, create, produce, evaluate, refine and reflect at each level of study. Students develop the ability to work in groups as well as individually on projects. In these situations students realize how to manage time and utilize resources to solve problems creatively. The merging of knowledge and creative experiences in an academic environment with industry-based processes, standards and culture is essential to the development of each individual designer.
Our Visual Communication Design students and graduates routinely receive local, state and national awards. Our students are employed by top design agencies/studios in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and throughout the nation. Students in design have won over 132 state, regional, and national awards since 2001. With more than 300 students in the program, the largest in the Art and Art History Department, the visual communication design concentration continues to be one of our most well-known and active department communities.
“Graphic design is the profession that plans and executes the design of visual communication according to the needs of audiences and in the context for which communication is intended.” - American Institute of Graphic Arts
“Graphic designers apply what they have learned about physical, cognitive, social, and cultural human factors to communication planning and the creation of appropriate form that interprets, informs, instructs, and persuades. Graphic designers use various technologies as means for creating visual form and as an environment through which communication takes place. Graphic designers plan, analyze, create, and evaluate visual solutions to communication problems. Their work ranges from the development of strategies to solve large-scale communications problems, to the design of effective communication products, such as publications, computer programs, packaging, exhibits, and signage.” - National Association of Schools of Art and Design
Associate Professor
Professor
Assistant Professor
Email: joshw@uta.edu
Adjunct
Adjunct
Senior Lecturer
Area Coordinator
Distinguished Senior Lecturer
Adjunct
Adjunct Instructor
Area Coordinator
Assistant Professor
Email: timothy.carvalho@uta.edu
Assistant Professor
Creative problem solving using basic elements of visual communication design with an introduction to typography, composition, and materials. Prerequisite: ART 2304, or permission of the advisor.
Development and application of concept, layout, and design as related to visual communication design. Prerequisite: ART 2304 or permission of advisor.
Instruction of typographic theories and practice for the web to facilitate connections with words, ideas, and information. Emphasis is placed on the structuring of information hierarchy, grid application, and typographic systems. May be repeated once. Prerequisite: ART 2304 or permission of instructor.
Interested in the programs offered by the Art & Art History department? Talk to an advisor!