Four Years in the Graphic Design Course

• 1st Year

  The necessity of starting right

  In the first year, students learn the foundations of visual design alongside students from the Digital Creation Course. The first year covers six fields: Drawing and Material Expression, Type Composition and Lettering, Character Design, Ideas and Presentation, Communication and Internet Literacy, and Sensory Design. For example, in the Drawing and Material Expression class, students learn through sketching, croquis, drawing and collage how visually powerful elements like color and materials are constructed and related. In the Type Composition and Lettering class, students explore lettering and typography by playing with language. Teaching staff includes leading professional designers and directors, from whom students acquire the foundational knowledge required in the actual design world.

  There are also optional modules looking at digital tools, indispensable in design today, for photography, video and online media. The year exhaustively covers both analog and digital technology, providing a vital base to becoming a full designer.

  

  1st Year Goals

  Learning foundational knowledge and technique, such as portrayal, lettering, design, characters, ideas, and online media.

• 2nd Year

  Design is born from imagery and words

  In the second year students study only with their peers in the Graphic Design Course for a year that enhances their specializations in the field.

  Firstly, they break design elements down into imagery, lettering and communication, and then begin to explore and consider each in deeper ways. The classes on imagery look at essential visual effectiveness through photography, color and form, while the module on lettering breaks words down into various forms and re-assembles typography again. Lastly, the class on communication trains students in group brainstorming methods. What is imagery? What are words? And then what is design that puts these together? While considering such questions about design, students gain skills in further techniques.

  Notably students also experience ink and kaisho calligraphy, which matured during the Tang Dynasty. While encountering the history and culture of Chinese calligraphy, students also acquire advanced awareness for dealing with lettering as a designer. Understanding correctly how lettering and characters came to be what they are today, students will be able to pursue creativity outside of the usual framework.

  

  2nd Year Goals

  Breaking down the elements of design and looking at structure. Deepening understanding of typographical history and culture.

• 3rd Year

  Drawing level with the professionals

  In this year students once again join up with the Digital Creation Course students to work with their specialist knowledge and techniques on projects that are transmitted to outside society.

  For example, a project to create a new bookstore starts with a survey of the locale and suggesting formats for a new kind of shop. Students then actually open a store for a limited time. The Graphic Design Course students handle the logo design and other shop visuals, such as posters, store members' card, leaflets, and so on. There are also projects based on introducing an electronics manufacturer's products to consumers in a way that is easy to understand. Students choose a project according to their preferences. Students form a team with other people with differing variety of talents, following through with a project and using design to resolve social or corporate tasks. Students experience a professional working environment during their time at college.

  

  3rd Year Goals

  Solving problems through projects in the real world.

• 4th Year

  Design that resolves social and human issues

  Based on their experiences accumulated up to the third year, students now spend the year working on personal projects. While being conscious of their own areas of specialty, such as graphic design, photography, typography, packaging design, drawing, and website production, students then refine their skills further.

  Graduation projects are the first step in going out into society with a specialization. For example, one student created branding for vegetable juice, designing the packaging from the notations of where the vegetables were produced to suggest new concepts for contemporary life and future agriculture. Another student developed bags and carpet with patterns visualizing a "good feeling," created from combining color and form, hoping to change the mood of the people who used the products. Graduates do not design only posters and flyers. The abilities enhanced over the course of four years enable them to resolve problems in human society today.

  

  4th Year Goals

  Exerting areas of expertise and creating graduation projects conscious of society and humanity.