| Code | Faculty |
|---|---|
| 01130102 | Faculty of Humanities |
| Credits | Duration |
|---|---|
| Minimum duration of study: 4 years | Total credits: 522 |
| Dr F Cassim [email protected] | +27 (0)124205188 |
This programme qualifies candidates for entry-level positions into the mass communications industries such as graphic design, branding and advertising as well as broadcast design. With a strong social underpinning, the programme incorporates design strategies, design applications and design products in print, ambient and screen-based media and technologies.
Closing date for applications: 30 June annually
Minimum requirements | ||||
Achievement level | APS | |||
Afrikaans or English | ||||
NSC/IEB | HIGCSE | AS-Level | A-Level | |
5 | 3 | C | C | 30 |
Departmental selection is necessary prior to admission to this programme. Although Art as a Grade 12 subject is not a requirement, a candidate must be able to demonstrate his/her creative potential and commitment to the chosen field of study. Candidates are therefore required to submit a portfolio of work for a merit selection review and, if invited, undergo a series of tests and be interviewed by a selection committee. Contact the coordinator for more information. A student who chooses this programme must work in an appropriate design studio, approved by the coordinator, for at least six weeks during the third and fourth years.
Students who are deemed NOT to be at risk of their level of academic literacy, are exempted from ALL 110 and ALL 125.
A student must pass all the core modules to be promoted to the next year of study. The Dean may approve exceptions to these promotion requirements on the recommendation of the head of the department.
The degree is awarded with distinction to a candidate who obtains at least 75% in IOW 400 and VKK 402.
Minimum credits: 134
To be promoted to the second year of study all core modules must be passed.
Module content:
Find, evaluate, process, manage and present information resources for academic purposes using appropriate technology. Apply effective search strategies in different technological environments. Demonstrate the ethical and fair use of information resources. Integrate 21st-century communications into the management of academic information.
Module content:
This module intends to equip students to cope more confidently and competently with the reading and understanding of a variety of texts, to apply these skills in a variety of contexts and to follow the conventions of academic writing.
Module content:
This module equips students to understand and use a range of discipline-specific terminology; apply the strategies of critical and comprehensive reading to their own academic literacy; apply the conventions of academic writing to their own writing, using the process approach, to produce intelligible academic texts and use the correct referencing technique as required by the faculty.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
The module develops drawing skills that can be used to visually explore and create images and ideas for visual communication. An understanding of structure, form, space and lighting is developed through perceptual exploration of man-made and organic forms, supported by related theory.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
Introduction to design as visual form; elements, principles and logic in design; colour and its use as a design tool; analysis, synthesis and application of selected techniques. Introduction to typography: terminology, historical development and basic text forming; typography as direct communication; typography as illustrative entity. Introduction to the design process: originality and conceptual values; research, concept development, visual articulation and design rationales; self-evaluation.
Module content:
Foundations of visual culture
This module introduces art and visual culture theory using a wide range of texts and ideas. The module gives students wide exposure to visual discourses and includes a variety of visual culture examples e.g. artworks, advertisements. These discourses may include: exploring what visual culture is; modes of analysis; introducing terminology such as ideology and myth; dealing with selected periods from history contextually; introducing cultural icons and themes from popular visual culture.
Module content:
Images across media: current issues
This module presents an introduction into the ways in which images appear across media in contemporary visual culture from a specific African perspective within the global. This is done by means of exploring key modes, themes, genres, platforms and visual texts. Among the media and mediums that may be covered are photography, art, graphic design, advertising, film, documentaries, video, digital and social media.
Module content:
Images across media: historical perspectives
This module presents a historical overview of the ways in which images have appeared across media in visual culture from a specific African vantage point within the global. This is done by means of exploring key modes, themes and visual texts with the aim of fostering an understanding of how historical events and cultural and ideological trends underpin the visual. Among the topics that may be covered are the progression of graphic and industrial design from the Industrial Revolution, photography, art, fashion, dress, magazines, printed culture and postcards. The module also provides an introduction to research approaches and methods in the field of visual culture.
.
Minimum credits: 120
To be promoted to the third year of study all core modules must be passed.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
This module allows development of skills necessary for the conceptualisation, visualization and presentation of ideas and images with different meanings and purposes. Areas explored include interpretation of word and image relationships, visual rhetoric, characterisation, diagramming of information, instructional storyboarding and media experimentation.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
Introduction to digital technology. Typography and layout: typographic expression; layout systems and structures; integration of image and text. Photography in design. Design as visual communication: expressive and utilitarian dimensions; selected techniques and media. Applications and design problem solving in visual identity, packaging, editorial and promotional design.
Module content:
Gender, sexuality and visual representation
Introduction to the representation of sex, gender and sexuality in visual culture. Gender theory and terminology related to feminism, masculinity studies and lbgtq theory (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgendered, queer) are unpacked. Themes and issues in gender and identity politics such as the male hero, the nude in late 19th century art, the femme fatale, hysteria, androgyny and transsexuality are dealt with. Sexuality and gender issues across a range of visual cultural such as soaps, sitcoms, artworks, advertisements, fashion, music videos and films are addressed.
Module content:
Visual (Post)colonialisms
This module investigates aspects of Africanness, Afrocentrism, multiculturalism, transnationalism and the African diaspora and studies a cross section of work including traditional art, tourist art and the hybrid aesthetics of contemporary African art and visual culture. The module also focuses on the ideology of imperialism and colonialism and its influence on art and visual culture from the nineteenth century onwards. The influence of postcolonial thinking on the deconstruction of the ideology of colonialism is highlighted with reference to landscape and memory, the exotic and primitivism in South African visual culture.
Minimum credits: 160
To be promoted to the fourth year of study all core modules must be passed.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
This module allows for integration of imaging and visualisation with selected Information Design outcomes. Personal approaches to conceptualisation, critical reflection, autographic style and use of media are developed to visually explore and interpret deeper levels of meaning.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
Computer proficiency and digital technology as design tool and design medium. Production management: technology and production systems for paper and screen-based media. Design as visual communication: content, audience, media and design strategy. Applications and design problem solving in visual identity, packaging, exhibition, editorial, advertising and promotional design. Individualised design research.
Module content:
Post/Modernities: Contemporary discourses
This module investigates Modernism and Postmodernism as the dominant aesthetic, discursive and visual paradigms of the 20th and 21st centuries. Key concepts in these discourses and counter-discourses are highlighted and explored, such as the creation of modern subjectivity, the beautiful and the sublime, the avant garde, the metaphysics of presence, originality, authorship, hermeneutics, the “language turn”, différance and the so-called “end of art”. Theorist may include: Kant, Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault.
Module content:
Visual and virtual spaces
Critical decoding of culturally encoded ideas and ideologies embodied in the construction of space, place, and cyberspace in selected Modernist and Postmodernist cultural practices. Topics include spaces of consumption and entertainment such as shopping malls; gender and spatiality; symbolic spaces; surveillance and the architecture of fear. Land art, environmental art and related debates are also addressed. The ways in which real space is virtualised through new technologies; the history and development of virtual reality, virtual communities, the cyborg and cyberpunk, as well as post humanism, are all engaged with specific emphasis on how embodiment and disembodiment are represented visually.
Minimum credits: 120
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
Processes in design practice: planning strategies; methods for problem solving; design evaluation; communication; business principles and ethics. Integrated application of knowledge and skills through advanced design problem solving. Individualised design research.
Module content:
*Closed – requires departmental selection
This module focuses on the study of the history, theory and criticism of design. It includes the consideration of current design discourses within national and international contexts.
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