Vocational education and training programme content: Media designer digital and print

The German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has modernised the vocational education and training regulations for the profession "Media designer digital and print". Newly added were the areas of content creation, social media and 3D graphics. The new training regulations recently became effective.

The change of the internet from an information and knowledge platform to a communication and co-operation medium has an impact on the professions in the media and advertising industry. Facebook, Twitter & co. have evolved into lucrative marketing channels.

The modernisation of the training regulations for "Media designer digital and print" now has created a vocational education and training proposition, by which businesses can provide training also for these areas of activity.

The BIBB has developed the amendment and has created new optional qualifications for the areas of content creation, social media and 3D graphics development. The existing occupations of "Decoration template maker" and "Photo media laboratory assistant" were abolished and substituted by corresponding optional qualifications.

Many companies use social media for their marketing purposes. The new training regulations therefore newly institute the position "Platform for interactive communication" as a new optional qualification for social media content.

 

Goal: to work in a manner appropriate for the medium and target group

 

The taught content includes technical competences such as the creation of online company presences, the optimisation of search engines and applications for mobile devices. When these competences are combined with the optional qualification "Content creation", the apprentices attain the additional capability of, for example, conducting content-related research, of creating texts that are appropriate for the medium and the target group and of supervising online communities.

Alternatively, the social media elements may be combined also with the optional qualification "Communication planning and success control". Here, the apprentices gain the qualification to advise customers and to conceptualise communication measures for different media.

In this day and age, hardly any internet presence can do without graphics, animations and video elements. This is the area of activity of media designers in the new training field "3D graphics", where they learn to create three-dimensional still images and animations, for instance, the 360-degree visualisation of objects that is frequently encountered in many online shops.

Advertising often created purely at the computer

 

Apprentices learn also the animated illustration of real-life sequences and the simulation of fictitious situations and processes. These days, for instance, the automotive industry no longer transports a vehicle to a real shooting location for advertising footage; the vehicle is modelled in the computer by using geometrical bodies and then given surface characteristics such as colour, material, brightness and reflections. The result is a deceivingly real 3D graphic image - created by the Media designer digital and print with this specific training qualification.

Ultimately, also new optional qualifications were created, which replace existing occupations and integrate these into the new training regulation for Media designer digital and print. These include decoration template makers and photo media laboratory assistant.

The development in the field of digital photography has fundamentally changed this area of activity. These days, photo media laboratory assistants are predominantly occupied with the task of creating photo albums, photographic print-outs and large-scale foils with a weather-resistant coating.

Since their main scope of activity thus is mainly in the area of large-scale digital printing, corresponding vocational education and training propositions were created.

 

Career step: Certified media assistant

 

The vocational education and training programme for media designer digital and print moreover opens up attractive career and advancement options, such as the continuing education programme for becoming a certified media assistant.

In 2012, 3,615 new apprenticeship contracts were entered into in the occupation of media designer digital and print, including about 60 per cent women. This vocational education and training course thus occupies rank 38 in the ranking of the roughly 340 dual vocational education and training professions.

The average monthly apprenticeship salary according to the tariff is 874 Euro.