BA (Hons) Illustration

Module: 4VC021

Credits: 60

Period: 1

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will enhance your creative approach to illustration through a diverse range of image making workshops with drawing at the core of your practice. You will be investigating ways of seeing the world, recording and observing, to communicate visually. You will be encouraged to use experimental approaches and think conceptually when generating ideas and research. This will allow you to engage with surface, texture, colour, scale, the manipulation of media, and ultimately provide you with the opportunity to get ‘your hands dirty’! You will test, question and analyse all aspects of producing a successful image for a contemporary audience. Material methods explored will include a range of printmaking techniques, photography, digital processes, and an expanded notion of drawing. This diverse range of processes will be reflect on through a developing practice through the use of visual journals and sketchbooks, on field trips or in the studio. Alongside this, there will be a series of talks from specialist visual practitioners contextualising your learning. This module will culminate in a student-led symposium in which your image-making practices and conceptual ideas are brought together.

Module: 4VC022

Credits: 60

Period: 1

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will introduce you to essential aspects of contemporary illustration practice. This will encompass a series of collaborative projects and field trips. This approach will extend your visual and conceptual understanding of illustration as a discipline, and the importance of experimentation. Assignments will reflect current industry practice and principles, and you will work from a series of briefs, including single image and some narrative. You will be introduced to core contexts of practice which are editorial, poster design, children’s books, graphic novel, reportage, publishing, advertising and moving image. This range of illustrative practices explored will allow you to experience and briefly ‘inhabit’ different contexts for illustration. While your own interests will allow you to understand and identify your initial preferences for different contexts. This fundamental learning process will be supported by talks from staff and visiting practitioners who will augment your understanding of current industry principles and methodologies. These will precipitate contextual trajectories of illustration, placing current practice in a more historical and theoretical framework. The module will culminate in the development of a varied portfolio, which will be formally presented as an exhibition, through which you can develop a reflective approach to your practice, identifying areas of illustration that you would like to pursue further in Level 5.

Module: 5VC024

Credits: 60

Period: 2

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

Building on your work from Level 4, this module will introduce you to essential aspects of applied illustrative practice, reflecting industry. Initially structured through a series of short, focussed projects around editorial, book publishing and advertising, you will be introduced to the breadth of the subject in greater detail. From this exploratory work, you will develop a self-authored project/s, allowing you the freedom to explore the potential direction of your work, and to think about your future portfolio. You will engage with the industry through ‘live’ briefs and competitions and a series of talks by current practitioners will augment your understanding of industry practice. You will embrace an increasingly professional approach to all aspects of your practice, culminating in the presentation of your work and future direction. This will be underpinned by research, critical analysis and reflection on models of illustrative practice, contributing to the development of your own personal vision. Alongside studio practice, this will also contribute to your preparation for the dissertation in your final year.

Module: 5VC023

Credits: 60

Period: 2

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will examine narrative and sequential concepts across a range of platforms including zines, graphic novels, childrens’ literature, storyboards, animations, artists’ books and reportage. You will experience the established stages of development, from inception, research and idea generation, through character, location, visual coherence, layout, and “roughs”, to finalised work for publication and exhibition. You will have time to develop a substantial body of work and experience the potential of the long-form project. Throughout this year-long focus on narrative and sequence, an experimental approach to your work will be driven by your individual project proposals. You will further develop and enhance your visual language through an increased material engagement in the workshops and studios. Drawing, experimentation and collaboration remains at the core of the subject, you will undertake a number of themed drawing trips and assignments intended to assist your visual recording, reporting and analytical skills. Interdisciplinary projects across the School of Art will provide you with the opportunity to collaborate and will offer exciting possibilities to extend the direction of your practice. A series of contextual lectures, seminars and talks with an emphasis on literary analysis, visual culture theories and critical enquiry will underpin your studies. You will further hone your research methodologies for theory and practice and develop types of writing such as academic, journalistic and creative.

Module: 6VC024

Credits: 60

Period: 3

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

For the final year of your undergraduate studies, Illustration modules are designed to build upon the discoveries and progress made at Level 5. This module will support you in the generation of a substantial body of work that will become the foundation of your future practice. Major Project in illustration is intended to give you the necessary skills to become a professional freelance practitioner working in the Creative Industries. This module offers a series of projects, lectures, ‘live’ and competition briefs that are designed to inform your practice and your potential position in the marketplace. You will also undertake a series of projects that are intended to encourage greater understanding and engagement with industry. You will work independently as you progress through the module, engaging with the staff team through structured individual tutorials and studio sessions. You will have the creative freedom to build self-authored projects in negotiation with the staff team, projects that develop your own personal visual language. You will act professionally, plan and manage your weekly workload to hit agreed set deadlines. The body of work created for this module will form your final Illustration portfolio and degree show exhibition.

Module: 6VC023

Credits: 60

Period: 3

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module enables you to consolidate your learning and practice in a professional context, where you will demonstrate increasing independence in preparing for a career in the creative industries. You will engage with a range of assignments that will be both self-authored and developed from increased input from guest lecturers discussing career paths, providing meaningful insight and helping to enhance your understanding of the broad area of visual communication in the context of employability. Engagement with lectures, workshops and seminars will support this increasing independence as you learn to build an effective portfolio, engage with commissions, group exhibitions and develop strategies for presenting yourself and your work to the global creative community. You will undertake written and visual research to produce a visual thesis, generating an extended written assignment alongside supporting, experimental practical work. Using critical and reflective skills, this body of work should complement your practice-led portfolio, as well as contributing to your contextual understanding of your discipline. This module offers an opportunity to refine your personal visual language and approach to your chosen specialism within the market.

Generally a flexible career often with a focus on Image and text. It can include working for a client, personal self-authored works and exhibiting (both privately and publicly) which therefore allows you to steer your future. As an Illustrator you can locate yourself wherever you want but the work that you produce can be Local, National and Global as can your clients.

A concept artist gives a view of the future through visuals so others can experience the vision. From comic works to the design of new cars it is works that are often realist but showcasing imagination.

This is a long-term job aspiration for most as an Art Director is often the person in charge of other creative talents and large visual projects, so it takes time in the Industry first to get to the point where you take the lead, the decisions and Art Direct others towards your creative vision.

Whether freelance or in a team, design is about problem solving, with muliti media disciplines involved inclusive of; Image, Type, Sound, AR and Moving Image being areas to explore. Design crosses both clear communication regarding information and emotive works.

Whether Hand Skills or Digital, this career although can be commission based is often about personal direction. This means the work can involve a more rigorous self-reflective practice and often has it’s target in displaying in shows, exhibitions, for communities and in the environment.

An Image Maker is simply someone obsessed with the making of Images and whose work can push the boundaries of visual processing often through the making of unique Images. This discipline allows for work in personal & commissioned work alongside exhibiting. The work can be seen both as playful and experimental and something that pushes visual and technical boundaries.

A very broad area which can be best summed up as visual work that moves. It can involve hand drawing and old technologies in making things move such as stop frame as well as embracing high technology and new digital solutions. This area also is inclusive of making or using sound and type.

Crossing creative disciplines is becoming the norm, however a diverse practitioner is someone who really can wear different hats throughout their career and finds the challenge of diverse thinking and doing and the openness to diverse possibilities the grab.

The School of Art houses a range of purpose built studio spaces and workshops with an extensive range of professional equipment not available in schools and colleges. Students at the School of Art are taught by practicing artists and designers working in academic and technical roles. These specialist practitioners teach both fundamental skills, support experimental and speculative practice and ensure practice is underpinned by knowledge and awareness of contemporary contexts.

The Illustration course in particular is distinctive in its approach because of:

• The breadth of opportunities offered within the creative industries coupled with the wide reach of our course.
• The focus on the fundamentals of image-making at the heart of our course.
• The opportunities for individual, peer and cross-disciplinary collaboration.