Visual communication and design I

The course starts with a module on the communication officer's professional role, ethics and legal issues in relation to the increasingly changing media landscape. Basic theories on planning, analysing and interpreting visual communication and its practical implementation in different contexts such as graphic forms and printing production are treated. Digital film production is treated including theoretical components alternating with hands-on exercises. The course comprises theoretical aspects as well as practical components. Module 1 Professional role, jurisprudence and ethics, 7.5 ECTS cr The module aims to place the communication officer in a societal context with a focus on the concept of professional role. The meaning of various professional roles in the area and their interrelations are treated. The general and basic legal issues of communication are discussed, including freedom of speech and the press, public access to information and copyrights. Students also learn to approach various problems that may arise in the daily critically and reflectively and to acquire knowledge of the basic ethical principles relevant to different roles. Contact with active professionals is an important part of the module. Module 2 Introduction to visual communication and design, 22.5 ECTS cr The module comprises theoretical and practical components designed to develop students' multiple communicative skills, their creative and communicative abilities and their competence in using media technology. Students practice and analyse different ways of communicating meaning, ideas, concepts and narration in visual form. The module also addresses issues of visual communication in historical and current contexts. Instruction is in the form of lectures, seminars and individual and group exercises. The lectures deal with theories on graphic design, perception, multimodality, advertising, aesthetics and ethics as well as introductions to visual productions in terms of visual, semiotic and rhetorical perspectives and analysis methods. Students acquire basic knowledge of narrative techniques in film, video and interactive media as well as sound and moving picture editing.