Graphic Design

The Illustration Concentration within the Graphic Design BFA program offers students with a keen interest in image-making and visual communications an opportunity to create complex and multi-dimensional visual narratives and pursue materials, history, context, theory, technologies, and professional practice within the expanding realm of illustration.

The Concentration employs a Graphic Design lens to examine multiple analog and digital modalities of image-making such as drawing, photography, digital rendering, and collage within contexts such as pattern, ornament, and icon; and time-based, sequential, editorial, and gaming environments. Courses required for the concentration are completed in addition to satisfying the requirements for the BFA in Graphic Design. The Illustration Concentration requires a senior project in the general subject area of the concentration, as well as specific coursework outlined below.

Updated 12.6.24

Learning Outcomes

Students as part of this Illustration concentration will learn:

• Character rendering (figure, posture, emotive/expressive qualities)
• Considerations of field (setting, environment) perspective, composition, scale, color, figure/ground relationships.
• Semiotics of mark-making, tools, materials. Introduction to illustration specific concepts and considerations such as mise en scène, i.e. framing and staging (objects/forms/props/characters) and their co-relationship to storytelling.
• Narrative structures (traditional, new traditional, non-traditional). 
• Sequence in relationship to book, editorial, and other multiple-image sets.
• Illustration in the context of systems; print and screen apps., time-based image experiences (animation/motion). 
• Storyboarding and script/writing as organizing tools, drawing on coursework within and beyond Graphic Design.

Academic Requirements

In addition to fulfilling General Education requirements and other degree requirements, undergraduate students majoring in the Graphic Design Illustration concentration must complete the following requirements:

Foundation Courses: 16-17 credits

VIS 1050/ComX: 2 credits or VIS 2150/Key Class: 1 credit
VIS 1060/Foundation Drawing: 3 credits
VIS 1070/Extended Media: 3 credits
VIS 1080/Visual Language: 3 credits
VIS 1260/3-D Processes: 3 credits
VIS 1330/Lens and Time: 3 credits

Art History Courses: 12 credits

ARH 1020/History of Art Survey II: 3 credits
ARH 1021/History of Art Survey II Discussion: 1 credit
ARH —/One course in the history of art before 1800 (lower-level)
ARH 3405/Design History and Theory: 1750–Today: 4 credits or
DES 3300/History of Graphic Design Survey: 4 credits

Illustration Studio Courses: 45 credits

DES2150/Drawing as Narrative: 3 credits
DES2450/Digital Media I: 3 credits
DES2460/Digital Media II: 3 credits
DES2600/Word and Image II: 3 credits
DES2700/Illustration I: Visual Storytelling: 3 credits
DES2705/Illustration II: Style and Subject: 3 credits
DES2720/Translation Drawing: 3 credits
DES3510/Word and Image III: 3 credits
DES3700/Illustration III: Series and Sequences: 3 credits
DES3705/Illustration IV: Imagery in Action: 3 credits
DES3710/Illustration V: World Building: 3 credits
2 courses in Visual Arts Studio Elective/DES3740/Special Topics in Graphic Design: 3 credits each/6 credits total
DES4100/Community Design: 3 credits
Visual Arts Studio Elective: 3 credits

Synthesis Courses: 9

DES3500/Junior Seminar:3 credits
DES4900/Senior Project I: 3 credits
DES4991/Senior Project II: 3 credits
Total Credits: 82-83