Visual Communication: Type & Hierarchy

The words are the easy part. Deciding which ones matter most is the job.

About This Course

Every strong design makes a decision about what matters most, and shows it before anything else. This course is about that decision. Typography, hierarchy and colour theory, taught as tools for directing attention, not decoration added at the end.

What You'll Create

A completed poster brief combining typography, hierarchy and colour.
A folio of drafts showing the development of the final design.
A written statement explaining the design decisions made and why.

Course Details

Age Range: 15-18
Term: Term 1
Schedule: Fridays, 4:00pm
Duration: 10 weeks
Price: $500
Spots Available: 8 of 8

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What You'll Learn

• You'll learn how typeface choice changes meaning, not just mood.
• You'll build visual hierarchy so a viewer knows what to read first.
• You'll use colour theory to create contrast, focus and mood on purpose.
• You'll learn the basics of grid and layout, and why alignment matters.
• You'll critique a design and explain exactly why it works or doesn't.

The Support You'll Get

You won't be handed the answer. You'll be shown how to find it.

Your practitioner has spent years making their own work, and their own mistakes. In the studio they work alongside you: asking the right questions, pointing out options you hadn't seen, helping you push through the moment you get stuck. The ideas stay yours. The decisions stay yours. They're there so you're never finding the way through alone.

Week by Week

Week 1: What design actually does. Typography basics. Typeface, weight, size, and what each one signals.

Week 2: Pairing type. Choosing two typefaces that work together, not against each other.

Week 3: Hierarchy. Deciding what a viewer sees first, second, last.

Week 4: Colour theory. Contrast, mood, and colour relationships that actually work.

Week 5: Grid and layout. Alignment, margins, and why structure is invisible when it's right.

Week 6: Putting it together. A poster brief combining type, hierarchy and colour.

Week 7: First draft, group critique, then refining based on feedback.

Week 8: Exhibition. Public showing, families attend.

Every course ends with an exhibition

Celebrate what you created with the people and our community. Every term concludes with a presentation or exhibition of your work: a chance to share your process, your ideas, and what you've made.

Your Instructor

Andrew Chew

Visual Communication & Photography

Andrew studied Visual Communication, majoring in Photography. Twenty years on, he's worked as a designer, photographer and gallery director, running No Vacancy Gallery and later directing YAVA. He built Assembly because the system around young people kept treating creativity as decoration instead of discipline. He teaches the way he's worked: try, fail, try again. Back your ideas. Test them. Push through when it's not working yet. He's spent years making his own work and his own mistakes, and in the studio he works alongside you, showing you how to look, how to frame, how to decide what matters, then make it.