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Welcome to Our New Department Website

The information you need should be easy to find and easy to understand. Our goal is for the website to be functional, focused, and packed with information. Details about the specific areas of study and their differences are front and center and so are your steps for how to get started. 


“Compared to the old site, this version should make it much easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.”

Josiah Spence, Interim Department Chair


Tour the Website

Check out the Student Experience page to discover why it’s so awesome to be an ACC Riverbat. This page can answer all your questions about classes and student life.

Visit the Programs page to discover the degree program and future career path best suited to your unique skills and interests. Maybe you’re curious about the difference between Graphic Design and Visual Design. Or perhaps you’re wondering what UX stands for. This page holds all the answers.

Ready to dive in? Then look to our Get Started page to get a breakdown of your next steps for enrollment, registration and more.

A Fresh Design

As designers we know that function and beauty go hand in hand. Our students are the future of design, so we embraced a forward-thinking aesthetic that is both clean and friendly.

“As well as putting information about our programs front and center, the new website is more visually refined, friendlier, and more contemporary.”

— Josiah Spence

New Program Identities

To make navigation easier, we wanted to visually differentiate each program so that anyone can identify them at a glance. Finding a way to distill these multifaceted subjects to a single icon that expresses their full scope was a challenge, but in the end, we decided that shape and color were the obvious choice.

The simple and almost child-like nature of geometric forms makes our programs feel accessible and welcoming. The radiating colors from the central shape also evokes the layered ways in which design filters through every aspect of our daily lives. 

The next step was to decide which shape goes with which program.

Something that jumped out was that the triangle shape reminded us of the point of a pencil, especially if we used our yellow color — perfect for Illustration! Pretty soon, other mental associations led us through the other shapes.

— Josiah Spence

Graphic Design

A square recalls paper and layout grids — key elements of Graphic Design.

Visual Design

A circle represents the fluid nature of designing for screens — the basis of Visual Design.

User Experience

A diamond reflects the many intersections of knowledge within User Experience and mimics the angles of the letter X in the UX abbreviation.

Graphic Media Production

A pentagon’s many facets are a nod to the detail-oriented precision of Graphic Media Production.

Illustration

A triangle suggests the point of a pencil, a nod to traditional illustration tools.

New Fonts

The headings are set in Inter by Rasmus Andersson, a neutral but friendly typeface designed with screens in mind. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of classic sans serif typefaces designed for signage. It doesn’t scream for attention, but greets the viewer with open arms.

The relatively tall x-height and minimal contrast between strokes makes Inter easy to read at all sizes — an ideal typeface for screens.

The body type is set in Hoefler Text by Jonathan Hoefler. A transitional serif typeface, Hoefler manages to convey both the elegance of more traditional serif faces and an openness that pairs well with Inter. It has enough character to impart a sense of class but is subtle enough to get out of the way and let you read.

Hoefler text was designed with screens in mind, maximizing readability by pairing a vertical stress with a moderate contrast between strokes.

For over 30 years our students have been inspiring us with their innovation and creativity. To meet your needs, we constantly evolve, whether that’s innovating curriculum to meet new industry standards or streamlining information so everything you need is at your fingertips, we always look to find better ways to serve you. Our ultimate goal is to help you jumpstart your career in the dynamic world of Visual Communication. We hope this website can be a springboard for you to do just that.

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New VisCom Student? How to Get Started

New to ACC?

Are you looking to start taking design classes? Or maybe you’d like to learn how to use tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign? You’re in the right place!

If you’re new to ACC, then your first step in order to take classes is to submit an ACC Admissions application here. Once you have completed that process, you will receive your student ID which you’ll need to log-in to the Self-Service portal to register and pay for classes.

You can explore all of our Visual Communication class offerings on the online course schedule.

Not sure how to register? Here are step-by-step registration instructions.

Find out more about:

Other related questions can be directed to Admissions and Records. You can find their contact information here.