Graphic Design Course

University Degree level. Higher Education in Graphic Design Equivalent to a Bachelor Degree

Quick Facts

Duration:
Tuition Hours:
Language:
Credits:
Tuition Fee:
Registration Fee: 3 years
9am to 4pm
English
180 ECTS
9.000€ per academic year
500€ (first year only)

Graphic design is a creative process that combines art and technology to communicate ideas. The designer works with a variety of communication tools in order to convey a powerful message to a particular audience. The main tools are image and typography.

Graphic designers are used to design everything from book covers, logos and packaging to advertising campaigns, websites and help build entire corporate images. The field of graphic design is as varied as the employment opportunities that follow, and a clever graphic design can dramatically improve a company´s sales figures.

Graduates of Marbella Design Academy are either self-employed, or work for international businesses worldwide. The internet has similarly opened up a number of doors for the Graphic Designer, and has made the visibility of his designs is endless.

The Graphic Design education offered to students at Marbella Design Academy has been designed to combine high academic standards with an exciting plunge of contemporary technique.

Graduates will assume their position in the professional marketplace, with the necessary resources that will allow them to excel in this fast-paced design industry with the necessary skills and understanding in order to develop a professional projection focused on visual communication and presentation.

It encourages a wide-ranging and creative approach to the array of techniques employed in the field of Graphic Design. Graduates will gain the practical skills and contextual understanding required within this specialized field to enable the creative application to the demands and opportunities within the professional industrial world.

Rationale

In the world of today, the presence of creative design is visible as a permanent and prominent feature of all arte-facts and communications encountered in our daily life. Our environment contains constant displays of imagination at the service of commerce executed by professionals presenting an extensive command of specialized technological tools. Our life is conditioned by series of unconscious responses to the stimuli of these manifestations, the motivation behind them, as well as their proposed projection.

Teaching and Learning Strategies

To ensure students' acquisition of the skills and knowledge that will consolidate their roll in the professional field, a variety of teaching/learning strategies will be used. These will include:

  • Lectures - Introducing ideas and exploring contextual or critical issues. Briefing classroom assignments as well as independent projects.
  • Staff-led Seminars – developing and discussing contextual issues relevant to the curricula
  • Workshops - in which specific skills are analysed, related issues, technical challenges or problems are taught and specialized techniques are practised.
  • Visiting Seminars & Master Classes - in which students will be exposed to a wide range of issues in relation to contemporary practice in the field.
  • Educational Trips and Visits - to develop an awareness of contemporary practice and a range of references for use in approaching problems in a professional environment.
  • Tutorials - used both individually and in small groups, for the close attention to the development of each individual's work and monitoring of their progress.

All teaching delivered at module level is designed to support the development of individual and independent learning and is organised as:

  • Supported: taught time, such as lectures, seminars, tutorials etc. where students are offered direct support for their learning by staff.
  • Directed: where students are carrying out assignments overseen by teaching staff.
  • Independent: study or assignment period completely independent of tutors.

Aims of our Academic Programmes

At the Marbella Design Academy, we aim to ensure the students a full education to consolidate their professional resourcefulness and projection in the industry of their choosing. To achieve this, MDA strives to:

  • Provide students with a programme designed to offer comprehensive and balanced knowledge incorporated within an intellectually demanding study scheme, allowing them to evolve towards assuming a professional position in continuous evolution within their chosen industry.
  • Provide students with well-honed practical capacities and in depth understanding of the realities of ever-changing technology within their field, ensuring permanent growth of their resourcefulness and creativity.
  • To provide students with in depth training on the commercial aspects of their chosen profession, in order to allow them to exploit the acquired capacities and knowledge.
  • To provide students with the opportunity to develop transferable skills referring to communication, self management, time management and problem solving, as well as a comprehension of the complexity of human relations both in a social and personal context within this and other professional fields.
  • To provide students with a profound analytical capacity, critical awareness and intellectual independence, stimulating originality of the thought process.
  • To provide students with the capacity to challenge conventions and engage in ground-breaking evolution of their field, with the means to defend their ideas and decisions with informed conviction.

Geographical Distinction

The climate of Malaga has created a tourist resort that receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The whole of the Costa del Sol is occupied by thousands of business enterprises that compete ferociously for trade with all the marketing tools at their disposition. The Graphic Design field is in constant movement, renovating images projected with the intention of attracting trade in a ferociously competitive and creative marketplace. A multitude of graphic design firms work the busy field, pitching both to the tourist and local trades, opening many opportunities for new professionals of Graphic Design.

Quality

To assure academic quality, the Marbella Design Academy has based the development of its study programmes on:

  • QAA Benchmark Statement for Art and Design 2008
  • QAA Benchmark Statement for Art, Architecture and Design 2008
  • QAA Framework For Higher Education Qualifications 2010
  • Ministry of Education of Spain - Boletin Oficial Estado - issues between 1997-2010
  • ECTS User's Guide 2009
ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) is the articulation of the Bolonia Process for the European Higher Education Area to assure a comparable educational system across national boundaries. The credits expressed correspond to double amount in the traditional credit systems, still in place in some countries like the U.K. (ie: 10 credits ECTS = 20 Credits in the UK). Acceptance of credits for transfer can be conditioned to assessment by the receiving institution.