Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design

Communication is the most fundamental human act and Communication Design expresses the fusion of semantics, pragmatics, and syntactics that our program embodies.

At MSU Denver, Communication Design is part of a professional education that emphasizes oral, written, and visual communication. This approach, coupled with sound strategy in research, practice, and visual studies, gives students the opportunity to engage in a broad spectrum of today’s design practice.

As a student in this program, you will first learn how to use typography, imagery, space, and time to communicate ideas and create narratives or stories. You will expand on these fundamentals in intermediate studies, where you will engage in design problem-solving through critical inquiry and research. At advanced levels, you will explore a wide range of design endeavors in projects that satisfy your personal interests as well as those that connect you with the Denver design community and industry beyond the classroom.

Through specific coursework that fuses semantics, pragmatics and syntactics, students discover how to design for the people and contexts that require communication while learning to craft effective and culturally appropriate messages in a broad range of design media. The program positions five pedagogical pillars as significant to our mission: making meaning, furthering function, pursuing process, mediating messages, and fostering form. These pillars are underscored by a contemporary practice that integrates design fundamentals with emerging media, research, and history/theory. As a design student, you will come to rely upon these critical aspects in your coursework and beyond. These are the very tools of the discipline that will enable you to be a successful designer.

Our MSU Denver Communication Design graduates find employment across diverse sectors within the design industry, showcasing their versatile skills and creativity in various professional roles:

All students entering the Department of Art as majors are admitted under either the B.A. in Art or the B.A. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism. After completing the foundation courses and one other course in ART, CDES, or ARTH, those wishing to pursue the B.F.A. in Art, B.F.A. in Art Education, or the B.F.A. in Communication Design will be required to pass a formal portfolio review for admittance.

Facilities

The Communication Design program is housed in the Central Building, on the southeast side of Auraria Campus. Here you will find approximately 4000 square feet of state-of-the-art digital technology, studio and lecture spaces, printing and production facilities, as well as faculty offices. This design hub offers the functions of a professional design studio. As a student, you will be free to work in any number of spaces based on your needs, interests, and coursework requirements, and thus have the opportunity to build a spirit of collaboration with other students in your discipline.

The studio features a design library and gallery for student reference; for in-depth research needs, the Auraria Library is just a building away. A collaborative learning lab features innovative strategies for team-based collaboration on design projects. An integrated print studio boasts an 1895 Columbia and Mitchell tabletop platen-press, and a Vandercook 3. As a student you will be able to work with faculty and/or trained studio assistants to produce a variety of printed ephemera. The historical significance of printing with movable type will connect you with your studies in design history and typography, among other subjects.

Emphasizing the connection between history and modern technology, data projectors and white boards are strategically positioned in teaching spaces to allow for project demonstration and group critique of work. When faced with producing design solutions, you will have at your disposal industry-standard color and black-and-white laser printers as well as a large-format archival printer. These in-house options will make it easy for you to make your design solutions a reality very quickly. Additional resources in the studio include video and still digital cameras, microphones, tripods, data projectors, and headphones, all available for student checkout.

Location

The Communication Design program is located in CN 311.

The Department of Art office is located in the Arts Building, Suite 187 on the Auraria Campus.