A hybrid design program
Learn Graphic & Web Design in Montreal’s West Island! In GWD you will learn the skills you need for a fulfilling career in graphic design and web site design. In three years, you will be thoroughly prepared to join the corporate design world. You can also set up your own freelance design company. Or continue your design education at university.
Graphic & Web Design holds the middle ground in between Art and Computer Science. In GWD’s web design classes, you will learn HTML and CSS coding, and some PHP and Javascript. These languages are used for the aesthetic and functional design of front-end web interfaces.
GWD’s front-end design (how it looks) should not be confused with Computer Science’s back-end / server-side web development (making it work).
You will learn all about color; composition, layout and design; photography, illustration and typography; animation and video editing.
Experienced faculty
Throughout your GWD training, you will learn from enthusiastic teachers who are up-to-date with practical knowledge of the design field, who are well-connected with the local design community, and who bring their real-world design experience into their classrooms. We encourage students to freelance while still in the program and many students graduate with impressive portfolios filled with work done for real-life clients.
Our program is close-knit and you will develop productive collaborative relationships with other students and teachers. Field trips to printers and web design studios, in-school exhibitions, a graduate vernissage, and guest speakers from the corporate world make sure that the Montreal design community is incorporated into the classroom. GWD students study in three labs equipped with industry-standard software and have access to up-to-date design resources in the John Abbott Library.
Preparing you for the professional workplace
In your final semester in GWD, you will enter the workplace for a challenging three-week fieldwork experience (“stage”), where you will apply your knowledge and skills in an exciting, contemporary, fast-moving corporate design environment. You might even see the work you do during your internship appear in point-of-sale kiosks, signage, local newspapers and on the internet.
You will also need to pass the Comprehensive Assessment, which is a pass/fail portfolio presentation that demonstrates the fact that you have acquired the basic skills required to graduate..
If your goal is to enter the design industry after graduation, there is a large pool of employment opportunities on the West Island and downtown that is eager to employ strong design students in both print and web. If your goal is to continue your studies at university, GWD graduates continue to study design at Concordia University, York University, Ryerson, and other exciting universities across Canada and the USA.
If your dream is to combine a graphic design education with a university degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Computer Science, or Education: the sky’s the limit, as many of our grads can attest.
For further information on the Graphic and Web Design program, please visit the program section of the John Abbott website. You can learn how to apply here.