Field of Excellence «Communication»

The Master programme aims to integrate three complementary areas into a comprehensive technical and cognitive understanding, and to further develop current possibilities for the visual representation of reality.

In the Field of Excellence «Communication» three key methodologies in graphicvisual and communicative design are studied in more depth:

• the media transformation of topics and narratives through the editorial creation of relations between image and text, vision and concept, design aesthetics and production (Editorial Design)
• the visual communication of facts, relations, and complex information of visualising and explaining knowledge (Knowledge Visualisation and Scientific Illustration)
• the strategic design of image and sign systems for orientation and identification in the context of Information and Corporate Design (Visual Systems)

Editorial Design

Head: Kurt Eckert

Editing is forming and formatting – the collecting, selecting, demounting, preparing, arranging, linking and the evident connection – of content. In the world of multimedia, formerly distinct editing techniques for different medial supports have clearly begun to overlay each other. The «technical» means of editing and publishing are nowadays widely pluralized: in generally accessible «technology», in hardware and software, permitting the design environment to change. In this field professional expertise is no longer primarily defined by rigorous technical aspects, but rather by knowledge, experience, understanding and conception of cross-media editorial solutions for specific topics and contents. Therefore, Editorial Design involves visual and verbal, acoustic and scenographic, informative and typographic, narrative and programmatic design.

Interface competence: The Masters develops an extended view towards techniques and productions of thematic editing: the distribution of knowledge and consciousness by means of text and image. Editorial design translates knowledge and information into media: books, booklets, newspapers, magazines, business reports, exhibition catalogues, programmes, flyers and also their various electronic doubles, humorous and serious, for computer screens and processors.

Editorial Design addresses designers with media-aesthetic skills dealing with language, script and image; production experience with publishing formats; theory and practice in picture/text assembly and visual concept development.

Professional goals: Media Designer; Publishing Designer; Communication Designer; Design, Culture and Aesthetic Scientist

Collaborations: MAZ Swiss School of Journalism, VSD Association of Swiss printing industry, SF Schweizer Fernsehen / Arte / 3sat, publishing and journalism companies.

Knowledge Visualisation

Head: Niklaus Heeb | Assistance: Marina Bräm

erkenntnis-visualisierung.zhdk.ch

Images create a high level of awareness. Visualisations of information increase their accessibility and ease of understanding, visualising knowledge and insights into new relations and dimensions not otherwise accessible to the optical sense. Visualisation of Knowledge deals with the translation of complex information into a visual language and the communication of knowledge through images.

Graduates extend their image design competences and engage with the use of imaging methods. The programme aims to create competence in the successful communication of scientific insight. Project-specific collaborations with the areas of research and science forms the core of the programme. Key areas in terms of content include Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences,
and Cultural Sciences. The media emphasis in this programme is on 3D-Visualisation.

Modern research approaches in the context of genetic technology, molecular biology, neurobiology, and surgery as well as climate research form the basis for an engagement with socially relevant issues in the field of science and their communication through images. Knowledge Visualisation builds long-term collaborative project areas with its science partners to develop, engage with, and reflect on these issues.

Knowledge Visualisation addresses designers with basic principles of scientific visualisation (concept, design and mediation), media literacy, 3D visualisation and practical experience in the field of knowledge communication.

Professional goals: Scientific Illustrators, Knowledge Visualizer, Art Director for Knowledge Communication.

Collaborations: WSL, Swiss Federal Research Institute; Neurosurgery Department, University of Zurich; Visual Cognition Research Group, University of Zurich; Vetsuisse, University of Zurich; ArchimediX, Multimedia Lab, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary; Anthropology in Leipzig.

Visual Systems

Head: Cybu Richli | Assistance: Dominique Fischer

The development towards an information and service society poses two key challenges: orientation and identity. Orientation in terms of the communication of information concerning everyday life, and identity in terms of the self-image and differentiation in industry, science, and culture. Both challenges are met with high quality courses in the areas of Information Design and Corporate Design, combined in the integrated topic «Visual Systems».

The topic deals with the visual-communicative connections within our community, and represents a future-oriented concept of training and education with a high level of social and economic relevance. Theory, design, and research – our increasingly complex and global world continues to pose new challenges in these areas, which we intend to meet with a sense of mission in an unconventional and professionally manner.

With Visual Systems we strive for an integrated orientation within the field of Visual Design. The goal is to professionally draw from all these areas when dealing with communication, aesthetic expression, and understanding of media.

Visual Systems addresses designers with expertise in brand design, corporate publishing; project experience in analog and digital signage, communication in space, visual transformation, pictogram, imagery and diagrammatic.

Professional goals: Brand Designer, Design Strategist, Signage Specialist, Information Architect.

Collaborations: International Institute for Information Design, Federal Statistical Office, Avenir Suisse, Design2Context.

Keywords: speech and image, editorial and narrative method, experimental and strategic design practice, media design (graphic, audiovisual, digital media), Journalism, Scientific Illustration, 3D visualisation & animation, pictorial cognition competence and visualisation strategies, knowledge transfer and reception, history and aesthetics of visual knowledge, generic design, brand culture, visual identities, orientation, visual language, visual reconnaissance.