Communication & Multimedia Design course summary
The Communication & Multimedia Design degree at NHL Stenden teaches you to become a designer and multimedia specialist with your own voice making a positive impact on the world. You’ll develop your insights into different multimedia, choosing your own specialisms and exploring 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 disciplines of multimedia communication, learning from others and working with a film studio, game studio, print agency and 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 during your second, third and final year, choosing what design disciplines to explore and when.
Developing disciplines
Explore the creative disciplines you particularly want to develop, taking the knowledge you developed in the first year to the next level.
Communities
In this programme, you work independently and in multidisciplinary project teams with lecturers and fellow students on the learning competences Create, Communicate, Research, Organise and Learn.
In addition, you choose which of the different studios you want to work in and collaborate with students from different years on projects of your choice.
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
CMD specials
The Communication & Multimedia Design community organises
various activities and events for and by students, including:
- You Design the World (YDTW)
- Video nerds
- Incubators for entrepreneurship (students are given the opportunity to do business!)
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 business identity. Your style,
your product, your portfolio, your future! The graduation phase
finishes with a presentation.
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 taking a number of minors.
- Art ‘n’ Sound (Leeuwarden, the Netherlands)
Explore visual and sound design and put your creative talent to work to create a jaw-dropping art and sound event. Kick-start your skills in composing, recording, producing, mixing, storyboarding, scriptwriting, filming and editing. - Entrepreneurship (Leeuwarden, the Netherlands)
With this minor focusing on developing your own passion and talent, you get to work on your own business idea, delving into the marketing and financial aspects of running a company, possibly culminating in you setting up your own business - Integrated Digital Marketing (Bangkok, Thailand)
Offering a combination of creative and technical skills development, this minor gives you an understanding of digital marketing strategy and how you can build the online presence of a brand and manage digital platforms to sell products. - Media Concepts & Sustainability (Leeuwarden, the Netherlands)
Understand how media connects and can impact the world in a positive way with this minor focusing on concepts & sustainability. You’ll explore everything from why research is vital to how you can measure your impact. - Digital Entrepreneurship (Bangkok, Thailand)
This minor provides a creative and structured approach for turning your business idea into a tangible product. You work with an array of digital marketing tools that will support your business’s growth.
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.