FAQ

The DMD program is a broad design program that covers a lot of design disciplines. Currently our students are starting careers in; Interactive Design, Web Design, Video editing & Production, Graphic & Social Media Design and User Experience Design. Students are also starting their own design agencies as well as consulting and freelance positions. As the program grows, we add courses that will expand opportunities for students. As a designer you will be called upon to use a variety of skills for a campaign or design project, this may mean a motion graphic animation that uses your illustrations on a website that works across all media platforms and is delivered to a specific audience.

No. We do not have any review process. Once you are accepted at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) as a student you can declare the Digital Media Design B.A. as your major. Philosophically we do not have portfolios reviews because our experience is that students in high school change a lot in college. You develop new skills, ways of communicating and thinking -and a high school portfolio will not show us that. We care about where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

We have an internship course (DIG 4940 Design Internship) which is not a required course but is strongly recommended for our design students. It’s an opportunity for students to work in a design studio, agency or department for a semester. Every student who has taken on an internship has dramatically improved their design skills and approach to their work. There are some internships that we have places for with design students, some on campus working with design departments, and some off campus too. The course relies on the student being proactive and finding their own design internship and setting it up themselves, as long as it fulfills the requirements of the course. We also encourage that internships are paid.

For more information on internships at FGCU, please see: https://www.fgcu.edu/academics/internships/

If you are a creative person and are interested in a career getting paid to be creative, solve problems and working on cool projects, then it’s probably for you. Design is a ‘calling’, a vocation, most people who want to be a designer know they want to design because they’re often doing it already (redesigning logos for fun, seeing ugly/broken things in the world and wanting to make them better, making website or flyers for family and friends, being that person who is seen as ‘creative’ by others). If you are unsure, we have several low-level courses that students can take to see if design is a good fit. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also incredibly rewarding.

No, there is no requirement or assumption that any design student starting out has any knowledge of Mac/PC and creative software such as the Adobe Creative Suite. We take you through all that. Of course, if you have taken design or art courses at high school and know the software a bit, that will certainly help. The courses are designed around using software as a tool, just ‘knowing Photoshop’ doesn’t help you think creatively. It may well be that the best solution to a design problem doesn’t involve software or computers at all. We want the DMD students to be ‘agile learners’ which means they think up solutions based on the needs of the client or the audience and that might mean learning how to do something very quickly and applying it in a creative and sometimes surprising way.

As one would expect we use industry standard software for the majority of projects. Adobe Creative Suite is the main software (Photoshop, Illustrator etc.) We use Maya for 3D animation, After effects for post-production/VFX and motion graphics. Unity is the main video game engine. Zappar Studio is used for AR projects. MadMapper for video projection mapping. Processing for interactive hardware projects, and so on. We use any tool that students may need for a project to be successful and this changes along with innovation within the evolving world of design technology.

We have one teaching studio which is where the majority of design courses are taught. We also have a MacLab which is open all week M-F for design students to use for their projects (the DMD Studio is also open outside of class time for student use). We have a dedicated senior studio space, the Undergraduate Research Lab which is located in the library. Design seniors have access to that room all week and at weekends. There is also an Interaction Research Lab which contains the motion capture suite.

For a list of our equipment, see the Equipment page.

Yes! It’s very important to us that students get to work with professional designers as much as possible. We invite designers in for guest lectures or to set design assignments (called briefs) for the students. Several courses integrate ‘live clients’ into the course, this is often a person or people looking to work with design students on a specific project. This could be government agencies, private businesses or NGOs. The live client will setup a problem for the students to solve and then we all work towards a solution in exactly the same way as it would be approached in a real design agency.

See examples of student placements on the Alumni page.

Yes! DIG 3029 Global Sustainable Design is taught as an international study abroad course. Students get to spend 2 weeks in Copenhagen, Denmark; Malmo, Sweden and London, England as part of the course. It’s an intensive course with students being embedded in the design and sustainability cultures of three major European cities.

The DMD program is studio-based, this means that each class is 2h 45m long, once per week. This time is usually split up with lectures, technical presentations and work time. It’s critical that design students spend as much time together working with their professors as possible. Design is a collaborative process so we reproduce a working studio environment in the classroom as much as possible.

No, this is a studio-based program and although we have some online courses it’s very important to us that we build relationships with the design students in-person through one on one conversations and feedback.