As class filtered into their first meeting for Visual Communication Design 1 we were all wondering: “What in the world is Visual Communication Design and why am I not in Graphic Design 1?” The answers we got to our questions were confusing, and never explained the difference between Visual Communication and Graphic Design well. Naturally, as our first major digital project came up I decided to try and understand what even our instructor had a hard time articulating.

“Visual Communication Design is like a rhizome” describes the tight knit network of skills used every day by a visual communication designer. Conceptually, the major banks off of the same principles a graphic designer studies, but a VCD major widens their net by intimately connecting normally-disparate skills. These skills are the nodes of the “rhizome.” Each skill nurtures the others. From those bases a VCD major draws knowledge to grow from certain disciplines, (see information systems) and then reaches up and out to engage with the industry with a strongly utilitarian and well-rounded network of skills.

Originally designed in my Freshman year, the poster was pretty overgrown. Recently I simplified it and made the messaging clearer.