VCE Visual Communication Design past exams 2023–2025

Every question from the last three VCE Visual Communication Design exams, matched to the lesson that teaches it, with class averages from the examiners' reports and worked solutions. VCE Visual Communication Design (Year 12) lessons.

2025 Exam

A1 (4 marks, class average 57%): A Gestalt principle at work in one chosen example, and what it does there. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
A2 (4 marks, class average 50%): The legal obligations a designer may have faced, shown with evidence from one chosen example. Lesson: Professional Design Practice, Designing Environments — Wayfinding and Spaces
A3 (6 marks, class average 47%): How well the processes, tools and surfaces in one chosen solution do their job. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
A4 (6 marks, class average 65%): An element and a principle that create the look of a chosen example, and the aesthetic they build. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
A5 (4 marks, class average 53%): How one factor shaped the designer's decisions in a chosen example. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
A6a (4 marks, class average 53%): Link what a chosen example is for to ideas of good design. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Designing Environments — Wayfinding and Spaces
A6b (4 marks, class average 38%): Judge whether a chosen example suits its setting, using ideas of good design. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Designing Environments — Wayfinding and Spaces, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
A7 (8 marks, class average 35%): Two designers you studied and the experts they brought in, compared. Lesson: Professional Design Practice
B1a (3 marks, class average 57%): More characteristics of the young adult audience, relevant to the swap shop. Lesson: Discover and Define — Research and the Brief
B1b (3 marks, class average 40%): Your chosen field, and the real limits on what you can design for the swap shop. Lesson: Discover and Define — Research and the Brief, Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
B2 (6 marks, class average 57%): Generate three or more clearly different ideas with development drawings in your chosen field. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement
B3 (12 marks, class average 41%): Develop one idea into two concepts, annotated with the elements and principles you used. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
B4 (12 marks, class average 35%): Resolve one concept for the client and use a convergent thinking tool to check it against the criteria. Lesson: Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch, Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
B5 (4 marks, class average 20%): Agreed ways of showing your design so the client reads it correctly. Lesson: Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch, Designing Objects — Product and Packaging

2024 Exam

A1 (6 marks, class average 45%): Two human-centred research methods a designer could use to set design criteria in one field. Lesson: Discover and Define — Research and the Brief
A2 (6 marks, class average 48%): How two factors influenced design decisions in a chosen design example, with evidence. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
A3 (6 marks, class average 63%): What one element and one principle are doing in a chosen example, and why. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
A4 (4 marks, class average 50%): Show which Gestalt principle groups or orders the content of a chosen example. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
A5 (8 marks, class average 50%): Judge how well a chosen design meets its users' needs through ideas of good design. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions, Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
A6 (6 marks, class average 53%): Two designers you studied: where and how they work, and the choices they make, side by side. Lesson: Professional Design Practice
A7 (4 marks, class average 45%): Legal duties a designer has in a field of your choice. Lesson: Professional Design Practice, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
B1 (6 marks, class average 63%): What parents, staff and children each need from a new kindergarten. Lesson: Discover and Define — Research and the Brief
B2 (6 marks, class average 63%): Quick, varied ideas for the kindergarten brief, in one field or several. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
B3 (12 marks, class average 43%): Develop two concepts from one idea, annotating to evaluate the methods, media and materials. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement
B4 (12 marks, class average 47%): Take one concept to a client-ready presentation drawn with the field's conventions. Lesson: Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch, Designing Environments — Wayfinding and Spaces, Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
B5 (4 marks, class average 45%): Link the visual choices in your final design to what one stakeholder group needs. Lesson: Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch, Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness

2023 Exam

Q1a (1 mark, class average 84%): Name the design field shown by a rendered drawing of a boxy product with a digital display. Lesson: Designing Objects — Product and Packaging, Professional Design Practice
Q1b (1 mark, class average 65%): Name the method used to make a detailed image of a bird. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness
Q1c (1 mark, class average 82%): Name the media used for a hand-drawn tower with wood and stone textures. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness
Q1d (1 mark, class average 57%): Name the design principle in a busy illustrated festival poster. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
Q2a (4 marks, class average 60%): Two design elements in a festival web banner and how they shape its aesthetic. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
Q2b (3 marks, class average 53%): One technique that grabs the audience's attention and a different one that holds it. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness
Q3 (6 marks, class average 38%): Name and discuss the two design process stages shown on a sheet of speaker drawings. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement, Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch
Q4a (9 marks, class average 49%): Draw a third-angle orthogonal drawing of a stepped wooden block with a round hole. Lesson: Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
Q4b (7 marks, class average 21%): Draw an isometric view of a folded confectionery box from its net, with tabs showing. Lesson: Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
Q5a (8 marks, class average 54%): Design a three-image black and white sign for a coastal shire using shape and figure-ground. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement, Designing Environments — Wayfinding and Spaces
Q5b (2 marks, class average 40%): Explain the decisions you made to adapt the photos into the sign. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement
Q6a (3 marks, class average 53%): How a wide street illustration was adapted into a set of phone screens. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
Q6b (4 marks, class average 43%): Two audience characteristics, with evidence from the phone screens. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Discover and Define — Research and the Brief
Q6c (2 marks, class average 25%): One factor that may have shaped the community illustration, and how. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness, Sustainability and Ethics in Design Solutions
Q7 (10 marks, class average 49%): Render a line drawing of a bathroom vanity to show chrome, tile, wood, ceramic and mirror. Lesson: Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch, Designing Objects — Product and Packaging
Q8a (2 marks, class average 90%): Name one design element and one design principle on a book cover. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness
Q8b (3 marks, class average 50%): How the element and principle together reflect the book's title. Lesson: Design Analysis — Purpose, Context and Effectiveness
Q9a (4 marks, class average 65%): Generate three or more colour-and-shape ideas for a tram's surface based on city buildings. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement
Q9b (5 marks, class average 56%): Apply your chosen tram design to the tram template. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement, Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch
Q9c (5 marks, class average 52%): Generate three or more poster layouts from the tram design, with type and a set hierarchy. Lesson: Develop — Ideation, Iteration and Refinement, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes
Q9d (9 marks, class average 44%): Produce a finished presentation drawing of the anniversary poster on the template. Lesson: Deliver — Final Presentations and Pitch, Typography and Layout for Professional Outcomes