GRAPHIC DESIGN

COURSE CONTENT

Level 4 (first year)

In your first year, you’ll be exposed to the full breadth of graphic design skills and solutions.

We’ll introduce you to a range of techniques to explore through the course. You’ll learn the importance of staying flexible to communicate across a broad range of media.

You’ll explore screen, print, interactive, web, typographic and theoretically based issues. Your practical work will depend on writing skills too because graphic design often involves images working with text.

Your first year provides you with the opportunities to develop cognitive, creative and technical skills through integrated theoretical and practical engagement. Units in the first level of the course provide an introduction to fundamental skills, principles, processes and knowledge.

All units in your first year are designed to provide you with experience in the studio and IT areas and to promote confidence in using technical processes, methods and materials necessary to the study of graphic design.

Study at this level provides a broader contextual understanding of the subject. Theory and practice are seamlessly integrated into all units. Skills in research, critical analysis and evaluation, communication of interrelated practices and technologies, are delivered to enhance the student’s creative potential.

Level 5 (second year)

During Level 5 you are required to relate creative aims to critical and contextual frameworks.

Learning agreements drive the self-initiated project in our ‘Innovate: Consolidate’ unit. This allows us to emphasise the progressive change in teaching methods that allows you to develop more confident and reflective approaches to your learning and demonstrate your increased self-directed learning.

Theoretical understanding at Level 5 builds on work undertaken at Level 4 to extend student knowledge and understanding of the wider contexts and issues of the visual arts, within appropriate theoretical frameworks.

In the final term, contemporary practice and contextual awareness and research of graphic design is broadened and deepened by the ‘Defining and Refining Themes and Issues’ unit.

Level 6 (third year)

Level 6 encourages you to confirm your particular creative aspirations and to extend the scope and depth of their enquiry.

All subsequent units require you to define your study through Learning Agreements, which you’ll negotiate with the teaching team. These provide a focus to enable you to demonstrate the integration of your learning on the course.

The Major Project unit provides an opportunity for you to demonstrate the maturity of your creativity, intellectual enquiry and expressive abilities. Your final major projects will focus on your identity as an individual designer. You’ll be encouraged to view your project as a springboard into a career and use it to open doors into industry.

Likewise, the ‘Investigative Study’ unit affords opportunities to pursue a programme of advanced independent research, consider links with the Major Project, or demonstrate that the level of skills in research; analysis, criticism and communication are appropriate for entry in employment or postgraduate study.

COURSE STRUCTURE

All students are registered for the award of BA (Hons); however, exit awards are available if you leave the course early, having successfully completed one or two levels. If you successfully complete a level of the course, you will automatically be entitled to progress to the next level.

For the award of a Certificate of Higher Education (CertHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 120 credits at Level 4. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the first year of your course.

For the award of a Diploma of Higher Education (DipHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 240 credits of which a minimum of 120 must be at Level 5. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the second year of your course.

For the award of a BA (Hons) you must have achieved a minimum of 360 credits of which a minimum of 240 must be at Level 5 or above, of which a minimum of 120 credits must be at Level 6. This qualification will be awarded upon successful completion of your course.

A BA without Honours may be awarded if you have achieved 300 credits, at least 180 of which are at Level 5 or above, and at least 60 of which are at Level 6.