Master the process and art of visual storytelling with a bachelor’s degree in media design and development.
Strong design, across all mediums, delivers powerful experiences and drives audience engagement. Earning a media design and development major means you’ll leave with a command of the necessary processes and skills to create static and interactive story designs and experience in diverse field exercises that ground you in understanding the user experience.
You’ll be connected with experiences that elevate your work and your marketability in visual communication fields. Our award-winning faculty are agile and adaptive, embracing a fast-changing media landscape that pushes innovation and entrepreneurial learning.
We teach empathy and self-awareness, not only for recognizing personal biases, but also for helping students to stay grounded in professional ethics throughout their careers. We are intentional in purpose and embed transformational experiences across our curriculum.
Through immersive projects, our student media and strategic communication agency, students gain meaningful work experience in engaging audiences using the information design process, design methodology and visual presentation techniques in storytelling.
Students tell us they arrive on campus and find more than an academic home – they find a sense of belonging. Students immediately connect with a network of faculty, students and alumni, who help launch students’ career paths.
Concentration Areas
All SJSC students are required to complete 27-33 credits of core courses. In addition to these core credits, each major or concentration requires an additional 15-18 credits. Consequently, students can pursue multiple majors or concentrations within SJSC’s three main fields— Journalism, Media Design and Development, and Strategic Communication— across 11 different concentrations, while fulfilling the 120-credit university requirement for graduation.
Within our media design and development major, you’ll get to further develop your expertise in one of three specialized areas:
- Information Design and Prototyping – In this concentration, students learn how media design and presentation techniques enhance the communication, understanding, and delivery of information.
- Interaction Design and Development – In this concentration, students learn how information design strategies are used in the development of websites and other digital products.
- Media Development and Analytics – This concentration focuses on the design and development of digital media content and how audiences use and engage with those stories and platforms.
- Motion Design and Interactivity - In this concentration, students engage in multimedia storytelling and interactive media, mastering motion design to captivate audiences and deliver compelling narratives.
Career Paths: Graduates majoring in Media Design and Development can pursue various roles, including interaction designer, UX designer, usability analyst, UI developer, web developer, data visualization specialist, content strategist, user experience researcher, digital marketing specialist, media analyst, social media manager, SEO specialist, motion graphics designer, video editor/producer, and more.
My undergraduate experience prepared me to take risks and challenge myself every day. I learned that if you’re too comfortable, then you aren’t growing and have to search for something new. Both my journalism and Emerging Media Design & Development experiences made me a better designer, thinker, and human.
—Erika Espinoza
Journalism Graphics Major, Class of 2017
Pulitzer Prize winner, 2018
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