Visual Communication Major & Minor

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Get hands-on learning in graphic design, web design, photography, filmmaking, and data visualization. Discover how images, video, and text can inform, persuade, and engage our world.

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Why Study Visual Communication?

In today’s digital world, how we communicate is diverse and ever-changing. The way we process information and communicate ideas has become more visual. Studying visual communication teaches you more than how to produce media. You will also learn about media’s historical and contemporary impact on society.

Why Study Visual Communication at Luther?

Media creators today are asked to be knowledgeable and fluent across the board rather than highly skilled in one area. Luther’s deeply passionate faculty will push you to approach visual content creation from every possible angle. You’ll learn how to capture and express information in multiple mediums.

At Luther, we’ll teach you to think broadly and solve problems creatively so that you’ll be ready to work in a number of fields after you graduate.

You’ll also find that we prepare you beyond your career. Studying visual communication at Luther will help you express your beliefs, values, and knowledge throughout your life.

Facilities

You’ll have access to our Digital Media Center, which has a full video production studio and a multi-station editing lab. And you can use our Makerspace, which is a growing resource for the Luther community to create, build, and prototype.

Real-World Experience

Luther’s visual communication program connects you with some transformative internships. For example, you can get real-world experience at Collider and Mayo Clinic through Luther’s Rochester Semester. You’ll work on website and digital video production, television series, and video games.

VisCom Festival

The annual open house Visual Communication showcase features student work completed throughout the year. Every spring Visual Communication students gather to present films, graphic design, photographs, user experience design, and papers celebrating an academic year’s worth of accomplishments in the field.

What You’ll Learn

Luther’s visual communication program draws from many fields of study. It includes communication studies, computer science, data science, management, and English. It focuses on visual art forms that convey ideas and information, such as drawing, graphic design, illustration, advertising, animation, and more. Our visual communication program will provide you with a framework to create, understand, and critically engage with media. You’ll get excellent career preparation for graphic design, web design, media production, and other media fields. You’ll also:

Learn the fundamentals of the digital tools used in the creation of graphics, visual persuasion, color, imaging, and design.
Acquire skills central to journalism and professional writing for various media. This includes newspapers, print magazines, and electronic journalism.
Learn how to properly engage, analyze, and evaluate mediated texts and practices, in addition to articulating and creating arguments about their cultural, political, and social merits.
Use principles and methods of visual media production and apply them in research and analysis.

Curriculum

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My plan is to use my camera to tell stories of home. I want to change the narrative that people believe and through that possibly change the situation of at least a few people back home.

Ahmad Danesh Rassa '22

VISUAL COMMUNICATION MAJOR