Master's Program in Visual Communication Design
Aalto University
About this program
Master's Program in Visual Communication Design
The Visual Communication Design program (VCD) is an international learning community committed to investigating new modes of action within visual communication. As a critical response to the contemporary conditions, the studies enable you to reconsider the established notions of graphic design. The program supports you in rethinking and redefining your own design practice, in order to situate it in wider societal and environmental frameworks. By providing the competence areas of information design, visual narratives, and type & written language, the curriculum encourages you to turn your design practice towards the public and the sustainable, and towards multiple and diverse knowledge domains.
Admission requirements
You are eligible to apply in master's admissions if you have a bachelor’s degree. The bachelor's degree must be equivalent to 180 ECTS credits or three years of full-time study. The degree must give eligibility to apply for master’s degree studies at university in the awarding country. The awarding higher education institution has to be a recognised part of the official national education system of the country. It has to be accredited as a degree-granting higher education institution by the country where it is located or by a relevant international organisation (such as UNESCO).
For more information, please visit the university website.
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Program content
The VCD program provides you time and space to redefine your individual design approach, with continuous backup from community, collaboration, and peer learning. The studies support you in this with a combination of theory and practice.
Engaging with diverse literature, writing, and discussion encourages you to evaluate the role of visual communication in the society and the environment, and the discursive and material properties that converge in your design practice. Critical perspectives shed light on urgent political issues, such as representation, diversity, and social and environmental justice. Intensive courses introduce you to necessary tools and skills to accomplish contemporary design projects, whether you are into data, visual storytelling, or typographic expression.
In the form of extensive studio courses, the program particularly supports three competence areas crucial for a visual communication designer: information design, visual narratives, and type & written language. Specified in your personal study plan, selections within these competence areas enable you to either deepen or broaden your skills and knowledge. Special attention is also given to the notion of publishing, which plays a central role in pursuing a self-organized practice, and in keeping communication design close to the public.
The core of your studies consists of the overarching practice seminars, where you stop to think and share your learning with others. In the first year Design Practice Seminar, you reflect on your own design work and build a framework of references by assembling your individual Designer’s Archive. In the second year Research Practice Seminar, you work on the development of your own research project that leads to your master’s thesis. The studies enable you to update your skills and knowledge whether you aim for a professional design practice in an applied or self-organized context, or to continue to doctoral studies.
Scholarships & funding
Several scholarship options are available. Please check the university website for more information.
Tuition
For non-EU/EEA citizens: €15000/year
Qualification
Upon completion of the program, students will graduate with a Master of Arts (Art and Design) degree.
Continuing studies
A finished degree with a successful master’s thesis enables you to apply for doctoral studies in art and design, with the possibility of an academic career in the emerging field of practice as research.
Career paths
As a graduate of the program you will have the skills and knowledge to work as a design professional in visual communication design, either by developing your own practice, or with an established design agency or organisation. You will be also be able to work as an art director, design lead, or in another managerial role.
About this institute

Aalto University
Aalto University is a multidisciplinary community of bold thinkers, where science and art meet technology and business. We are committed to identifying and solving grand societal challenges and building an innovative future....