C10324v4 Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation
Award(s): Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication (BDesign)Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCIInn)
UAC code: 609555 (Autumn session)
CRICOS code: 079754E
Commonwealth supported place?: Yes
Load credit points: 240
Course EFTSL: 5
Location: City campus
Overview
Course aims
Career options
Innovation and Transdisciplinary program
Course intended learning outcomes
Admission requirements
Course duration and attendance
Course structure
Course completion requirements
Course program
Honours
Other information
Overview
This distinctive degree explores diverse forms of visual communication across design, culture and media. Visual Communication students acquire in depth understanding of the histories, practices and meanings of the visual world. In turn, obtaining the visual knowledge and skills required to negotiate rapidly changing technology, visual media and culture while becoming skilled in apprehending the unprecedented pace at which visual images, visual technologies and information data are produced.
Taking a transdisciplinary approach, the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation utilises multiple perspectives from diverse fields, integrating a range of industry experiences, real-world projects and self-initiated proposals, equipping graduates to address the wicked problems, complex challenges and untapped opportunities in today's world.
Students immerse themselves in a practice-oriented, studio-based culture, studying a range of interdisciplinary subjects encompassing typography, interaction and image-making. Taught by experts in visual communication, students learn everything from the history and theory of visual culture and technology to producing cutting edge creative work in digital media, interaction design, photography, editorial design, information visualisation, web design, wayfinding, mobile apps, code, machine learning, motion graphics, the internet of things and 3D technologies such as VR/AR and 3D printing. Exploring both traditional and experimental research methods students learn to produce conceptually rigorous and socially responsive work. They graduate with the capacity to work across and between disciplines, to articulate design practices and processes, and to apply them to complex problems. Graduates develop industry experience through the degree's emphasis on addressing real-world issues in collaborative and team-based work.
By focusing on the high-level conceptual thinking and problem-solving practices that lead to the development of innovative, creative and entrepreneurial outcomes, students of the combined degree also gain leading edge capabilities that are highly valued in the globalised world, including dealing with critical and creative thinking, invention, complexity, innovation, future scenario building and entrepreneurship, and the ability to work on their own across disciplines. These creative intelligence competencies enable graduates to navigate in a rapidly changing world.
Course aims
The degree has a hands-on, studio-based culture that is supported by a strong historical and theoretical component. Academics encourage both innovation and experimentation in research and practice to help students make work that is conceptually rigorous and ethically responsive.
Offering a variety of interdisciplinary subjects, graduates are able to move into their professional lives with the diverse knowledge and skills required to work collaboratively and across disciplines. All students work with industry clients on real-world projects and undertake work experience during their degree.
Career options
There are many career options in a range of fields for graduates, such as digital media, publication designer, graphic designer, interaction designer, interactive media designer, web designer, branding specialist, art director, motion graphics designer, advertising, illustrator, and exhibition designer. Graduates are also equipped with the skills to become writers, researchers, editors and critics, and to apply design thinking in a non-design industry business.
By being creative thinkers, initiators of new ideas, scenario planners, global strategists, open network designers or sustainable futures innovators within their chosen field of study, graduates maximise the potential of their chosen profession, making them highly sought after graduates with the ability to identify and develop solutions to some of the most complex issues that face their disciplines and society.
Innovation and Transdisciplinary program
Transdisciplinarity and Innovation at UTSAll UTS students have the opportunity to develop distinctive capabilities around transdisciplinary thinking and innovation through the TD School. Transdisciplinary education at UTS brings together great minds from different disciplines to explore ideas that improve the way we live and work in the world. These offerings are unique to UTS and directly translate to many existing and emerging roles and careers.
Diploma in InnovationThe Diploma in Innovation (C20060) teaches innovation, supports personal transformation and provides the hard skills needed to support the inventors and inventions of the future. Students come out of the Diploma in Innovation, with the hard skills to create and support sectoral and societal transformation. Graduates are able to fluently integrate ideas, across professional disciplines and are inventors of the future.
All UTS undergraduate students (with the exception of students concurrently enrolled in the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation) can apply for the Diploma in Innovation upon admission in their chosen undergraduate degree. It is a complete degree program that runs in parallel to any undergraduate degree. The course is offered on a three-year, part-time basis, with subjects running in 3-week long intensive blocks in July, December and February sessions. More information including a link to apply is available at https://dipinn.uts.edu.au.
Transdisciplinary electives programTransdisciplinary electives broaden students' horizons and supercharge their problem-solving skills, helping them to learn outside, beyond and across their degrees. Students enrolled in an undergraduate course that includes electives can choose to take a transdisciplinary subject (with the exception of students concurrently enrolled in the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation). More information about the TD Electives program is available here.
Course intended learning outcomes
| A.1 | Establish and develop a sustainable, informed and ethical position towards social and cultural issues. |
| A.2 | Engage critically in urgent ecological issues in practice-led projects. |
| A.3 | Practice cultural principals and protocols required to work in Indigenous contexts. |
| C.1 | Work cooperatively and professionally as part of a team, initiate partnerships with others, take a leadership role when required, and constructively contribute to peer learning. |
| C.2 | Communicate an informed well-researched viewpoint. |
| C.3 | Communicate ideas effectively in a variety of ways, including oral, written and visual. |
| CII.1.1 | Identify and represent the components and processes within complex systems and organise them within frameworks of relationships |
| CII.1.2 | Select, apply and evaluate various techniques and technologies for investigating and interpreting complex systems |
| CII.1.3 | Discern common qualities of complex systems and model their behaviour |
| CII.1.4 | Generate insights from the creative translation of models and patterns across different systems |
| CII.2.1 | Recognise the nature of open, complex, dynamic and networked problems |
| CII.2.2 | Explore the relevance of patterns, frameworks, approaches and methods from different disciplines, professional practices or fields of inquiry for gaining insights into particular problems, proposals, practices, contexts and systems |
| CII.2.3 | Analyse problem situations or contexts from multiple disciplinary or personal perspectives and integrate findings in creative and useful ways |
| CII.2.4 | Test the value of different patterns, frameworks and methods for exploring and addressing complex challenges |
| CII.2.5 | Interrogate and generate ways to create value and evaluate outcomes. |
| CII.2.6 | Examine, articulate and appreciate the speculative or actual value of outcomes for different stakeholders, communities or cultures over time |
| CII.3.1 | Communicate, explore, network and negotiate in ways that are inclusive of and mine for ideas from diverse disciplines |
| CII.3.2 | Design, develop and apply appropriate team-based decision making frameworks and participate collaboratively in teams according to proposed intentions |
| CII.3.3 | Use a range of appropriate media, tools, techniques and methods creatively and critically in multi-disciplinary teams to discover, investigate, design, produce and communicate ideas or artefacts |
| CII.3.4 | Articulate often-complex ideas simply, succinctly and persuasively to a diverse team or audience |
| CII.3.5 | Create environments to support inspiration and reflexivity so that inter- and trans-disciplinary practices can develop and thrive |
| CII.3.6 | Recognise problems, challenges and opportunities that require transdisciplinary practices and assemble relevant teams to begin dealing with those problems, challenges and opportunities |
| CII.4.1 | Identify significant issues, challenges or opportunities and assess potential to act creatively on them |
| CII.4.2 | Work within different community, organisational or cultural contexts to design and develop ideas, strategies and practices for betterment |
| CII.4.3 | Make decisions that recognise the humanity of others by engaging ethically and sensitively to the values of particular groups, communities, organisations or cultures |
| CII.4.4 | Take a leadership role in identifying and working to address community, organisational or cultural issues, challenges and opportunities through innovation |
| CII.5.1 | Imagine and design initiatives within existing organisational structures (intrapreneurship) or by building a new context (entrepreneurship) |
| CII.5.2 | Explore and articulate the transformation required to create and implement innovation, with sensitivity to the creative destruction that this requires |
| CII.5.3 | Identify required capabilities for realising an idea and create a venture team to achieve the aspirations of a particular innovation |
| CII.5.4 | Communicate confidently and with diplomacy to influence essential stakeholders or decision makers and to achieve impact |
| I.1 | Create designs that respond to their context in formally or conceptually innovative ways. |
| I.2 | Advance ideas through an exploratory and iterative design process. |
| I.3 | Independent development of high level technical and craft skills for the production, presentation and documentation of work. |
| I.4 | Ability to innovatively and critically use a variety of digital technologies. |
| P.1 | An ability to critique your own work and the work of others with reference to standards drawn from contemporary design practice. |
| P.2 | Awareness of and/or engagement with the local and global design community. |
| P.3 | Understanding of academic and professional ethics, copyright and appropriate acknowledgement of intellectual property. |
| P.4 | Independently engage in self-directed learning and select and apply appropriate methodologies specific to the project. |
| P.5 | Students will have knowledge of Indigenous Australian contexts to apply professional capabilities when working with and for Indigenous peoples across Design in Visual Communication projects and industry. |
| R.1 | Source, evaluate and utilise appropriate academic and professional references. |
| R.2 | Employ a range of qualitative research approaches including practice-led visual and material exploration and social and participatory methods |
| R.3 | Analyse, synthesise and formulate complex ideas, arguments and rationales and use initiative to explore. |
| R.4 | Demonstrate knowledge of design history and theory and to place creative practice within a historical and theoretical framework. |
| R.5 | Reflect and engage in self-critique and critical thinking. |
Key
CII = Creative Intelligence and Innovation course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
Admission requirements
Applicants must have completed an Australian Year 12 qualification, Australian Qualifications Framework Diploma, or equivalent Australian or overseas qualification at the required level.
Admission to the combined degree is on merit according to the admissions policy for the Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication.
UTS: Design, Architecture and Building may consider applications based on the results of the Special Tertiary Admissions Test (STAT) if students lack academic qualifications but have extensive professional experience. The STAT is conducted through the Universities Admissions Centre.
Students must refer to the inherent requirements for all degrees offered by Design and Architecture in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building.
Non-current school leavers are selected on the basis of academic merit or on the basis of portfolio and interview rank.
Applicants are advised to submit an optional portfolio by Tuesday 31 October 2017.
The English proficiency requirement for international students or local applicants with international qualifications is: IELTS Academic: 6.5 overall with a writing score of 6.0; or TOEFL iBT: 79-93 overall with a writing score of 21; or AE5: Pass; or PTE: 58-64 with a writing score of 50; or C1A/C2P: 176-184 with a writing score of 169.
Eligibility for admission does not guarantee offer of a place.
International students
Visa requirement: To obtain a student visa to study in Australia, international students must enrol full time and on campus. Australian student visa regulations also require international students studying on student visas to complete the course within the standard full-time duration. Students can extend their courses only in exceptional circumstances.
International students
International students (excluding those studying in an Australian high school) must submit an application to UTS International (in person, by mail or online) or through an accredited UTS representative.
Applicants must submit the following material:
- a six-page digital portfolio in PDF format (landscape) of their work; this may include images, animation or video (max. size 5MB)
- one of the PDFs must be a 150–200-word written submission that selects and identifies one of the submitted pieces of work, and addresses the aim of the work and why it succeeded (to enable this PDF to be easily viewed, text must be supplied in 16-point Helvetica font, with 1.5 line spacing).
Course duration and attendance
The course is offered on a four-year, full-time basis.
Course structure
Students must complete 240 credit points, comprising 144 credit points in visual communication and 96 credit points in creative intelligence and innovation. The creative intelligence and innovation subjects are undertaken in accelerated form within July and Summer sessions during the first three years of study, and through one full year of study after completion of the professional degree. The Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation is not offered as a separate degree, but is completed only in combination with the professional degree program.
Industrial training/professional practice
In the final year of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation, students can undertake between 6 and 12 credit points of internship (work experience) that relates to innovation within their research, career development or core degree specialisations. For students undertaking 12 credit points of internship, international internships may be negotiated.
This course involves significant industry engagement as part of the learning process. Students may be required to relinquish intellectual property when they opt in to certain industry-related experiences, particularly relating to internships and capstone projects.
Course completion requirements
| STM91427 Core Subjects (Visual Communication) | 108cp | |
| STM91882 Design Studies | 18cp | |
| CBK92309 Options | 18cp | |
| STM90839 Core subjects (Creative Intelligence and Innovation) | 96cp | |
| Total | 240cp |
Course program
A typical program is shown below.
| Year 1 | ||
| Autumn session | ||
| 87631 VC Design Studio: The Politics of Image and Text | 12cp | |
| 87100 VC Design Theory: Critical Approaches to Visual Culture | 6cp | |
| 85503 Thinking Through Design | 6cp | |
| July session | ||
| 81511 Problems to Possibilities | 8cp | |
| Spring session | ||
| 87632 VC Design Studio: The Ethics of Image and Text | 12cp | |
| 87222 VC Design Project: Symbols, Systems and Visual Play | 6cp | |
| 85502 Researching Design Histories | 6cp | |
| December session | ||
| 81512 Creative Practice and Methods | 8cp | |
| Year 2 | ||
| Autumn session | ||
| 87731 VC Design Studio: Narrative, Form and Time | 12cp | |
| 87441 VC Project: Contexts of Visual Communication | 6cp | |
| Select 6 credit points of options | 6cp | |
| July session | ||
| 81513 Past, Present, Future of Innovation | 8cp | |
| Spring session | ||
| 87443 VC Project: Typography in Context | 6cp | |
| 87009 VC Design Studio: Visualising Experience | 12cp | |
| Select 6 credit points from the following: | 6cp | |
| 85202 Designing Social Change | 6cp | |
| 85001 The Bio Kitchen | 6cp | |
| 88015 Global Studio A | 6cp | |
| Year 3 | ||
| February session | ||
| 81514 Creativity and Complexity | 8cp | |
| Autumn session | ||
| 87832 VC Design Studio: Design Practice | 12cp | |
| 87011 VC Project: Visual Communication and Emergent Practices | 6cp | |
| Select 6 credit points of options | 6cp | |
| July session | ||
| 81515 Leading Innovation | 8cp | |
| Spring session | ||
| 87012 VC Project: Research Through Design | 6cp | |
| 87010 VC Design Studio: Socially Responsive Design | 12cp | |
| Select 6 credit points of options | 6cp | |
| December session | ||
| 81516 Initiatives and Entrepreneurship | 8cp | |
| 81522 Innovation Internship A | 6cp | |
| Year 4 | ||
| Autumn session | ||
| 81531 Industry Innovation Project | 12cp | |
| March session | ||
| Select 6 credit points from the following: | 6cp | |
| 81521 Envisioning Futures | 6cp | |
| 81528 New Knowledge-making Lab | 6cp | |
| July session | ||
| Select 6 credit points from the following: | 6cp | |
| 81525 Innovation Internship B | 6cp | |
| 81523 Speculative Start-up | 6cp | |
| Spring session | ||
| 81532 Creative Intelligence Capstone | 12cp | |
| August session | ||
| 81524 Transdisciplinary Practice at the Cutting Edge | 6cp | |
Honours
The Bachelor of Design (Honours) (C09131) is available to meritorious students with an additional one year of full-time study.
Applications are submitted via the UTS Study website.
Other information
Further information is available from:
UTS Student Centre
telephone 1300 ask UTS (1300 275 887)
or +61 2 9514 1222
Ask UTS
UTS: Design, Architecture and Building