Visual communication design is an evolving field. New technology brings new forms of communication as well as new design processes. In recent times, the Internet has emerged as one prevalent form of communication and design medium. The designer's role as visual problem-solver has broadened to include this electronic screen-based communication. Yet, with an added number of technical facets to understand for the new field of study, many print-based designers and design educators have not embraced these new challenges. Therefore, a "gap" has been formed in the design community, separating interactive designers and traditional designers. Even though there is a need for specialists in certain fields of design, it is important for designers to be aware of the entire visual communication spectrum. Undergraduate design education can play a pivotal role in preparing design generalists. The process of changing curriculum is typically slow and often difficult at four-year universities. Thus, many departments struggle to expose students to traditional and interactive facets. This widens the gap in the design community between design practice and design education. It also does not prepare budding visual communicators to be as versatile as the industry expects them to be.
To help establish the problem, a series of surveys were conducted. Current and newly graduated visual communication students were sampled to gather their perspective on current design undergraduate education. The findings show that design students are aware of the interactive void in design education. New graduates ranked how well their respective programs covered various facets of design. Interactive concepts consistently scored low. Web professionals were surveyed to construct an industry perspective. Generally, the industry expects new graduates to be proficient in skills other than concept design, such as knowledge of Web authoring tools and HTML coding. The samples reinforced the value of a theory-based education, as well as validated the pivotal role design education has in addressing the problem.
This thesis proposes a solution that is aimed at typical BFA visual communication programs. Such programs normally have a fine arts core, and lack personnel and resources to establish an interactive track for students. The solution introduces the idea of incorporating an interactive curriculum thread into the design program. This thread is flexible enough to discretely expose students to granular interactive design concepts. Faculty can include the thread into their classes, without having to be interactive design experts. Upon graduating, student will have acquired enough awareness of interactive design to ease their transition from school to practice. Ultimately, interactive design will remain under the umbrella of visual communication design, thus closing the "gap" in the design community.