Communication & Multimedia Design course summary
The Communication & Multimedia Design degree at NHL Stenden teaches you to become a skilled multimedia designer who creates innovative and applicable solutions, that improve people's lives an address the global challenges we face. You’ll develop creative design solutions, choose your own specialism and explore the needs of different target groups worldwide.
The programme for Communication & Multimedia Design
The programme focuses on how you as a designer can influence the world around you and how the world influences you. You’ll learn to design meaningful digital products, services and experiences using new and existing technologies. You will be able to mix text, images, video and sound into innovative solutions such as websites, games, animations, movies, or apps. Solutions that people can use in their daily lives at work, in school, or for entertainment.
Exploring disciplines
Your first year begins broadly and the emphasis is on discovering your talents and interests. In this programme, you discover a lot by yourself and consult with lecturers about what you want to learn. You work on challenges and real-life assignments, and get straight down to work with your project group, exploring different creative design disciplines, learning from others and working with a film studio, game studio, print agency or digital agency for web & app design and programming.
Design challenges
Develop your skills in design research, such as getting to know your target audience.
Subjects:
Study load: 20 contact hours, 20 self study hours per week | 60 ECTS per year
You take charge of your individual study path during your second, third and final year, choosing what design disciplines to explore and when.
In your second year you continue to develop in creative disciplines that interest you through design challenges, workshops, and projects linked to selected studios, such as:
- Visual Design
- Film and Motion Design
- Interactive Design (UX/UI and Frontend Development)
- 3D & Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
- Game Development
- Audio and Music Production
- Maker Studio
Study load: 20 contact hours, 20 self study hours per week | 60 ECTS
per year
Minor subject (study abroad)
During your minor you focus on a specific subject or expand your knowledge by taking an additional subject. This allows you to truly take charge of your education by ‘customising’ your course.
You can take these minors on the NHL Stenden campus in the Netherlands or at one of the NHL Stenden Grand Tour locations in South Africa, Bali or Thailand. You can also choose from minors offered by other courses and universities of applied sciences via an Exchange programme – this is all part of broadening your academic skills.
Read more about the options available and where you can take your minors in the section below on minors and specialisations.
Embark on an exciting internship journey
Apply your expertise in a dynamic setting by securing an internship
with an internationally focused company, either within the Netherlands or, preferably, on a global stage abroad. Gain valuable hands-on experience and broaden your horizons as you contribute to real-world projects in a diverse and enriching work environment.
60 ECTS per year
Your fourth year is focused on preparing for graduation and the graduation project itself.
CMD specials
From th CMD community a variety of student-led initiatives and events emerge, including:
- We Design the World (WDTW)
- The RISO Print Club
- Excursions at home and abroad (from visiting Storyworld to photographing orcas in Iceland)
- Incubators for entrepreneurship (students are encouraged and supported to start their own businesses!)
Graduation project
To graduate from CMD, you decide what your graduation project will be and whether you want to do your project for a company or create your own project. Over a period of five months, you
develop a product in which you demonstrate how you think and work. It’s a way of presenting your identity as a designer. Your style, your product, your portfolio, your future!
60 ECTS per year
The degree at a glance
Download the brochure to get a really useful one-page overview of the curriculum with a description of the modules and a list of subjects per year, the study load and the ECTS you can earn. Use it to compare the programme with other studies you’re interested in.
Minors and specialisations for Communication & Multimedia Design
In your third year of CMD, you get to specialise by following a minor.
- Design Asia (Bangkok, Thailand)
- Concept Academy (Leeuwarden, The Netherlands)
- Design for Impact (Leeuwarden, The Netherlands)
- Entrepreneurship: Business Design (Leeuwarden, The Netherlands)
Course catalogue
Practical approach of Communication & Multimedia Design
We aim to help you put theory into practice as quickly as possible. Through our educational concept, Design-Based Education (DBE), you work in small teams of students, teachers, researchers and industry professionals. You tackle current, real-life issues developing and adapting your visions and ideas to form a solid solution.
International opportunities
We want to prepare you for an international, intercultural, and ever-changing environment, so that you can dive into the unknown and gain experience in an international context. It is possible with our Grand Tour, Exchange programme or one of our mobility options offered by RUN-EU. Or you can choose to do your internship abroad. You’ll be able to put together the right combination of courses and internships to develop both your professional and personal skills – and develop your own network for the future.
Is this the degree for you?
If you're confident this degree is the one for you, then why not apply online straightaway? Or pick one of the other options to help you take the next step.
