Course General Description

Professionals practicing applied art, commercial art, graphic design and visual communication design often feel the need to step out of their comfort zones to hone their skills and enhance their creative capabilities. They feel a need to sharpen their thinking and making skills to become excellent practitioners. The MA in Visual Communication Design enables one to integrate existing models of thinking and making with emerging technologies and methods in the field of visual communication. The course will equip graduates become meaningfully resourceful, enhance their aesthetic sense and become more process oriented in the field of visual communication. The foundation for this course lies in emphasizing the processing and comprehension of visual information forms. Students will be encouraged to integrate the six key domains of visual communication design: aesthetic, functional, historical, symbolic, perceptual, and cultural. The discipline of Visual Communication focuses on providing core competency in developing visual literacy, visual thinking, visual perception, imaging, and representation. Design processes, research methods, history and theories of design form the building blocks for developing a comprehensive and successful branding strategy and creative communication material. The curriculum approaches visual communication through theoretical frameworks that not only inform and enhance the practice but also encourage the students to question the norms and cross traditional boundaries. The course will provide a platform to use design thinking to break rules, to express unique ideas, to question norms, and, to explore and experiment with the tools and methods of visual communication. Students will thus experience design both as a complex societal, corporate activity and an intense, exploratory, personal search into meaning.

School General Description

Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology (Srishti) is a design school established in 1996 by the Ujwal Trust in Bangalore, India. It offers design education in Digital Video Production, Film, Visual Communication, Experimental Media Arts, Design in Education, Textile Design, Animation and Visual Effects, Interaction Design, Product and Interface Design, Furniture and Spatial Design, Business Systems and Design and much more. Srishti has a number of centers and labs that offer practice- and research-based environments for students and faculty from a multitude of disciplines. These include (in alphabetical order): BHSI – Bangalore Human Sciences Initiative CEMA – Center for Experimental Media Arts CERTAD – Centre for Education, Research, Training and Development CPH – Centre for Public History GRIDs – Grassroots Innovation Design Studio Kabir Project[5] LEDLAB – Law+Environment+Design Laboratory Srishti Films Srishti Labs DesignEARTH Lab Natural Fibres Lab Pandimonium Lab SUI-Srishti Collaborative Blank Noise Srishti's culture encourages thinking, questioning and experimenting to harness the artistic and intellectual potential of each individual and place the institution at the leading edge of contemporary art and design discourse. A multi-disciplinary approach inculcates self-initiated learning and independent thinking and expands perceptual perspectives. Regular interaction with design studios, production and distribution centers, community projects, retail establishments and industry forms a vital bridge between Srishti and the world.