Illustration with a Foundation Year - BA (Hons)

The module will explore the core principles and techniques of illustration through research, sketchbook documentation, creative iteration and making processes.

You will begin with a dynamic transitional project that emphasizes individual development, fosters creative thinking, and builds confidence in a supportive learning community. You will be able to work alongside your peers, witness visual skills different from your own, and develop group-defined ground rules for learning, ensuring a collaborative and respectful studio environment.

Professional Futures: Communication equips you with the initial skills and knowledge necessary for your future career. The module explores the role of effective communication in the context of your emerging design practice. You will engage with theoretical frameworks and practical exercises to develop your contextual understanding of the subject, recognising their relevance in research, development and communication of key themes and ideas.

This module is designed to provide you with an in-depth understanding of narrative processes in the context of illustration. It combines theoretical and practical learning to help you comprehend narrative construction and its application to single, sequential, and moving images.

The module includes theory sessions and technical workshops that will instruct you about visual storytelling and introduce you to various visual approaches and potential solutions to enhance your creative skills. Additionally, you will work on individual and communal tasks designed to foster creativity and encourage exploration of storytelling strategies before completing a collaborative group project that can be delivered in various formats.

This module offers a reflective exploration of contemporary approaches to illustration through critical analysis and connected production of creative outcomes rooted within a broad contextual framework. This will empower you to develop a unique voice as an independent image-maker while developing work for a public facing outcome.

This module aims to deepen your knowledge and skills in contemporary illustrative practice. It will help you develop your visual language and direction by creating work that explores different audiences and contexts.

You will get the chance to choose projects from a range of established illustration discipline areas. The projects will be either live, simulated, or a competition brief, but in all cases, they will reflect the demands of real industry briefs. By working on these projects, you will gain a deeper understanding of how your skills can be used to raise awareness, solve problems, and communicate effectively to local, national, or global audiences. Each project brief will provide a starting point, but you will be encouraged to go beyond it and find new, experimental, and innovative ways to reach your audience. You will be encouraged to take creative risks to challenge your practice.

‘Professional Futures: Collaboration’ is designed to equip you with the essential skills for success in the diverse and collaborative field of design. With collaboration and communication as central themes, you will learn to navigate interdisciplinary teamwork and understand different design processes, methods and outcomes.

The module provides an opportunity to tackle real-world challenges through a cross-disciplinary collaborative project. This allows you to have a shared and reflective learning experience contributing to a shared task, preparing you for the demands of your future career. You will learn to convey ideas, concepts and project narratives with clarity and impact.

The aim of this module is to develop your critical, reflective, and analytical skills to define your practice. You will get an opportunity to explore your interests further and broaden your knowledge of potential career pathways and the wider context of illustration. The module comprises three interdependent phases that work together to comprehensively investigate your practice and prepare you for Level 6 study.

Central to this experience is a 70-hour work placement, which you can complete either in a concentrated block or spread out over the duration of the module. During this placement, you’ll have the opportunity to develop your professional attributes and subject-specific skills. To align closely with real-world job market conditions, you should expect to prepare a current and relevant CV, attend interviews, conduct research to source your own placement.

This module provides an opportunity for you to apply your knowledge and skills to an external, professional brief. The brief will be ‘real’, set in negotiation with an external client/agency/community, or it may be a simulation, inspired by a typical professional scenario you might experience in a work situation. The brief will enable you to apply your discipline-specific skills broadly, collaborating with your fellow students and, where relevant, across disciplines and with other stakeholders. Your project should consider sustainability and address relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals as a key aspect of contemporary creative industries work.

Creative careers often lead individuals on unexpected journeys, traversing diverse paths. Recognizing and seizing opportunities becomes pivotal in shaping a fulfilling portfolio career—one that harnesses your creative abilities while sustaining your livelihood. Whether you’re crafting artistic artifacts, performing, providing services, or offering consultancy, the art of promoting and pitching ideas lies at the heart of an independent, entrepreneurial journey.

In this module, we delve into the essential facets of an entrepreneurial career. Whether you see yourself as a designer-maker, actor, musician, illustrator, artist, writer, filmmaker or a blend of any number of roles within a portfolio career, we’ll equip you with the tools to articulate your experiences and work confidently. Expect surprises along the way—opportunities that may reveal themselves unexpectedly!

Having developed and defined your direction of study throughout Level 5, you will now advance your practice as you enter your final year of study. This module will provide you with the opportunity to adopt an increasingly autonomous commitment to your individual direction. At this stage, a focused attitude is essential in developing an informed and contextualised approach to your thinking, ongoing project development, and outcomes.

The key aim of this module is to build upon the work undertaken in previous modules and contextualise this within a written assignment or its equivalent, that frames both your work and identifies possible future direction.  You will look to achieve this through the collection and use of both primary and secondary research. This should be used to support a deeper understanding of your discipline and practices, with further analysis used to help shape your on-going development as a successful creative.  

Professional Futures: Presentation provides final-year students with essential skills and strategies for navigating the design industry. With a focus on ‘presentation’ and employability, the module provides you with guidance on refining your skills, whilst preparing you for the next stage of your design journey.

The purpose of the module is to enable you to undertake a sustained, in-depth and theoretically informed research project exploring an area that is of personal interest to you. It is important that we can support you appropriately, so you will be guided towards choosing a research topic which is relevant to your discipline and in which your lecturers have expertise. The outcome may take the form of a written dissertation or a practice-based portfolio.