A strong vocational programme with outstanding industry links nationally, our Graphic Design course will equip you with all the skills you’ll need to be a designer of the next century. Our graduates are visually literate and leave the course technically able to cope with the demands of a fast moving industry.

This programme will:

• develop masters' level thinking, research abilities, deeper subject knowledge and capability, and discipline-specific skills
• let you gain increased experience of working professionally, greater flexibility and problem solving skills, and, ideally, first-hand experience of working in employment settings
• help you become highly employable with demonstrable experience of being able to address complex and challenging professional work
• enable you to acquire deeper practice-based skills, while furthering your vocational experience of working on professional pieces of work, exhibition projects and commissions
• challenge you in the way you think about your practice and how you may embrace new opportunities, collaborate with others, take risks, solve problems and adapt to different and innovative ways of working professionally in the creative industries arena

YEAR 1 (LEVEL 4)

Your creative practice modules introduce you to your subject area of design that starts with a broad base with an emphasis on creating ideas and solving design problems using a variety of design and media production processes in a multidisciplinary environment of learning and teaching. The shared learning environment enables you to learn from working alongside each other, especially during induction and early modules such as ‘Introductory Subject Studies’. These aim to provide a firm foundation of experience on which to build. The team assignments are particularly successful in helping you make friends and open your mind to the philosophy of the Design programmes.

Work will be viewed periodically during modules and critically analysed through group discussion. Emphasis will be placed on your individual learning and you will receive a broad range of assignments within your subject area. These will analyse and explore the language of art and design, principles and processes, forms of communication and media techniques in staged progression through the first year.

 MODULES

• Contextual Studies 1
• Creative Futures 1
• Introductory Subject Studies
• Principles and Processes
• Ideas and Concepts
• Media and Techniques

 YEAR 2 (LEVEL 5)

You will find your modules will enable you to consolidate and extend your learning with more advanced techniques and processes that challenge you to experiment with a variety of media and methods of communication. Within the practical modules you will extend your art and design practice, thinking more about art and design in the community, for society and exhibition. There is the opportunity to produce sustained work over longer periods of time, raising quality and standards.

There is increased flexibility, enabling you the freedom to develop expressive aspects and abilities through choice of assignments in accordance with the philosophy of the programmes, developing your own critical research and intellectual skills. You are expected to take more responsibility for your own learning, action planning, evaluating your development through your ideas and concepts, reflective journals, and personal development planning.

 MODULES

• Contextual Studies 2
• Creative Futures 2
• Extended Practice
• Practice in Context
• Specialist Study

 YEAR 3 (LEVEL 6)

Here you will find that the creative practice modules will enable you to work on more complex and lengthier assignments that require an extended and sustained period of study. This involves critical, analytical negotiated studies through which you can determine your own career path and have the opportunity to negotiate a year plan that places you with more responsibility over what projects you undertake. In shared sessions, you will pitch your ideas to tutors and peer group and establish a learning contract that specifies your intended aims and learning outcomes. Presenting your work in this way will help you gain confidence in communicating your ideas. You will then manage your time and work to timescales in achieving a body of work that fulfils your objectives. This is closely monitored through regular critiques, seminars and tutorials.

Very often the negotiated study modules may take the form of commissioned, outside client or competition based work that adds relevance from an industrial and professional standpoint. The work will form a showcase that may culminate in an exhibition, but ultimately becomes your portfolio and passport to employment.

 MODULES

• Contextual Studies 3
• Creative Futures 3
• Negotiated Study 1
• Negotiated Study 2

 YEAR 4 (LEVEL 7)

The modules on the Integrated Masters' will enable you to acquire deeper practice-based skills, while furthering your vocational experience of working on professional pieces of work, exhibition projects and commissions. The programme challenges you in the way you think about your practice and how you may embrace new opportunities, collaborate with others, take risks, solve problems and adapt to different and innovative ways of working professionally in the creative industries arena.

 MODULES

Locating Practice
Practice and Application
Advanced Professional Practice