In this hands-on creative design and marketing course, students explore how visual communication, branding, and storytelling shape the products and messages we see every day—while also discovering how modern marketing can help build a more circular, sustainable future. Students develop their artistic and technical skills through drawing, illustration, and digital media production using Adobe Creative Cloud, learning how to transform concepts into polished, market-ready visuals.
Alongside creative design, students examine how marketers influence consumer behaviour and how design choices support a company’s brand identity and marketing strategy. Using the Marketing Playbook for a Circular Economy as inspiration, learners explore how brands today are moving beyond a “take–make–waste” model toward solutions that eliminate waste, keep materials in use longer, and regenerate natural systems.
Students experiment with real design challenges connected to the playbook’s four pathways for circular marketing—
- Creating scalable circular solutions through thoughtful product and packaging design
- Driving demand for circular products with compelling visuals and benefit-led storytelling
- Making circular behaviours irresistible by designing user-friendly messages and customer touchpoints
- Hardwiring circular KPIs by reflecting on what success looks like across a product’s life cycle
Course projects are creative, practical, and fun. They may include:
- Designing professional product packaging
- Creating stickers, buttons, brand logos, and promotional assets
- Developing a brand identity system for a circular or sustainable product
- Producing mini-campaigns using digital illustration, graphic layouts, or animation
- Using design thinking to create visuals that attract, persuade, and inform real audiences
This course is ideal for students interested in art, digital design, branding, or marketing, and welcomes learners at all skill levels. It supports BC’s Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies curriculum by building creative problem solving, technical proficiency, user-centered design, and modern communication strategies. Students leave with a portfolio of visually engaging and sustainability-aware work—reflecting both the creative fun of graphic design and the future-forward role marketing plays in shaping a circular economy.
Note: This will be offered as a double block (8 credits)
