design

Graphic Design

At Concordia, graphic design is approached – first and foremost – as an art form, with both conceptual and technical components cultivated and held in balance.

This approach is reflected in the department’s design lab, located on the second floor of the Olin building and housing work areas for both computer technology and traditional studio.

Equipment includes 16 iMac workstations, scanners, projection system, laser jet proofing printer and connection for upload to color laser and large format color printing at the nearby Instructional Technology Center.

All computer stations feature rapid World Wide Web connections. The lab is accessible to graphic design students at any time during the weekdays, and during most evening and weekend hours.  An additional resource is the Mobile Lab, a suite of 16 Mac Book Pro laptops that are issued to specific design class students during a semester. All of the units contain full design software.

To remain current and relevant in this rapidly changing, creative arena, the college is committed to a three-year replacement cycle of computer hardware, and yearly updates of software. Our primary software programs are those of the Adobe Creative Suite (now the current version is CS5) that resides on all of our machines. When you study graphic design at Concordia, you always have the most recent machines and most recent software.

The graphic design area serves both graphic design majors and majors in fields such as communications and journalism (including photography) who find graphic design a beneficial corollary. 

The graphic design major program is a 12-course major that you will generally start at the beginning of the sophomore year.  It is possible with adept planning to pair the major with another major (often communications or business), so you may graduate in four years after completing two full, interrelated majors with distinctive career opportunities. Currently, the program is robust and popular, serving more than 50 majors. An average of ten students have graduated with the major each year past for many years.

Our professors work shoulder to shoulder with students to teach graphic design. Their approach for developing graphic designers is based on giving you formative assistance at every level of the graphic design program. Classes include introductory beginning graphic design and intermediate graphic design. You will also benefit from completing general art foundation courses such as two-dimensional foundations, three-dimensional foundations, beginning drawing, and art history survey.

With this background, faculty will work with you to enhance your area of interest within the field of graphic design, be it layout, publication design, typography and illustration. During senior year, you will be developing a distinctive portfolio with an eye toward to post-collegiate applications and careers.

The great majority of graphic design graduates go directly into the workplace.  However, some go on to graduate programs leading to a Master of Fine Arts terminal degree, which qualifies you for professorial positions at the collegiate level.

Alumni who concentrated in graphic design now work as designers and illustrators in Fargo-Moorhead, the Twin Cities, and large market clients in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego, Boston, Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and abroad in Canada, Mexico, Norway, Finland and Germany.

See a portfolio of student graphic designs.

Information For:

current students
faculty and staff		 parents
alumni		 high school students
admitted students