MA Graphic Communication Design

Master

In London

£ 5,550 VAT inc.

Description

  • Type

    Master

  • Location

    London

  • Duration

    2 Years

As the ‘carrier signal of the 21st century’, graphic communication design concerns every sphere of human life, impacting profoundly on culture, technology, social justice, economics, the built environment, globalisation, policy, sustainability and much more. MA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins promotes a shared exploration of an ever-developing subject while enabling your progression as an individual designer.This course is part of the Graphic Communication Design Programme.Great reasons to applyOur graduates are versatile makers, astute commentators, and agents of positive socio-economic, cultural, and technological changeWe take a critically informed and experimental approach to the production, form, and circulation of knowledge bringing together the traditional studio and craft traditions of graphic design with research driven approachesWe experiment openly with existing specialisms such as illustration and web design but also develop our own new onesOur students have access to a diverse range of workshops including letterpress, print-making, photography, video, sound and digital facilitiesOur individual and collective practices benefit from a highly international and diverse student and staff community.Open daysMonday 23 October, 6pmTuesday 14 November, 6pmWednesday 13 December, 6pmScholarships, awards and fundingAll postgraduate funding options for Central Saint Martins.Jane Rapley ScholarshipsVice-Chancellor’s Scholarships:Home/EU | InternationalPostgraduate loans of up to £10,000 are now available for eligible UK and EU students. A full list of eligibility criteria and information on applying can be found on the postgraduate loans webpage .Insun Jang – HungerStudent work@CSMGraphics on InstagramPreviousNextFollow us @CSMGraphicsMA Graphic Communication Design news1 of 6Show Two Theme: Puncturing Power2 of 6Design...

Facilities

Location

Start date

London
See map
1 Granary Square

Start date

On request

About this course

Entry requirementsAn applicant will be considered for admission who has already achieved an educational level equivalent to an Honours Degree. This educational level may be demonstrated by:An Honours Degree or an equivalent academic qualification;A professional qualification recognised as equivalent to an Honours Degree;Applicants who do not meet the standard course entry requirements may still be considered if the application demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence . This might be demonstrated by:Prior experiential learning, the outcome of which...

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Subjects

  • Presentation
  • Staff
  • Loans
  • Credit
  • Approach
  • Design
  • Economics
  • Built Environment
  • Communication design
  • Exhibition
  • Project
  • Technology
  • Project Development
  • Communication Training
  • Media
  • Music
  • Production

Course programme

Course detail

MA Graphic Communication Design pursues a direct and in-depth connection between the ‘applied arts’ tradition of graphic design and a critical and creative approach to communication. A carrier signal, in any form of communication, is the baseline flow of information. It is continuously modulated to transmit messages; it refigures meaning. If music can be understood as a carrier signal for the twentieth century, both expressing and amplifying waves of cultural change, then graphic communication design reveals itself to be the carrier signal of the twenty-first.

MA Graphic Communication Design cultivates a considered stance towards visual and other media. Through this course, you will be challenged to simultaneously develop critical positions, through and about graphic communication design, and innovate its new forms. The curriculum synthesises research driven and hands on approaches to graphic and communication design.

Course dates

Autumn term
Monday 24 September 2018 – Friday 7 December 2018
Spring term
Monday 7 January 2019 – Friday 15 March 2019
Summer term
Monday 15 April 2019 – Friday 21 June 2019

Related content
  • 2017 Degree Show website
  • 2016 Degree Show website
  • London is Changing project

Course structure

The course is delivered over two three term academic years across three 60 credit units, each lasting two terms.

Unit One: Graphic Communication Design as Research

The purpose of Unit 1 is to introduce you to graphic communication design as a knowledge practice as well as a subject of study. If indeed, as Marshall McLuhan asserted ‘the medium is the message’, it then holds that the production of knowledge is intertwined closely with its form and circulation. By positioning graphic communication design as research, we open up new opportunities and ways of working, new kinds of integrity and effectiveness, challenging the conventional understandings of what knowledge is and how it could be deployed. Unit 1 is delivered through a series of five project briefs. A sequence of three briefs will introduce you to a range of themes and approaches within graphic and communication design. These are followed by an external client brief completed in groups. The unit concludes with a negotiated brief that supports the development of your individual areas of interest leading into the start of Unit 2.

Unit Two: Situated Practice in Graphic Communication Design

Where the intention of Unit 1 is to expose you to a diverse range of perspectives, Unit 2 sees you strengthen your particular stance as a designer. Individual reflection and authorship are part of this process. However equally important are how your work interacts critically with the wider frames of reference to which it is related. During this unit, you will develop and contextualise an in-depth position regarding graphic communication design related to your broader practice in the form of a research paper. Your paper will form the basis of your contribution to a cohort-wide publication. Your cohort will also plan a symposium to which you will each contribute a presentation of your work. On behalf of the cohort and the course, the symposium and publication are intended to articulate and question the present landscape of the discipline.

Unit Three: Graphic Communication Design Project

Development, editing and refinement are crucial sites of signification in graphic design practice. Unit 3 further develops your understanding of graphic communication design as research by carrying this proposition through to the interrogation of the details and processes of production across an individually negotiated body of work. Important to this unit are the details of production across multiple visual, textual, and/or other media based outcomes that build upon your Unit 2 coursework. The experience of committing and attending specifically to these aspects of graphic communication design practice will inevitably give rise to new insights and questions that should ultimately support new directions and lines of inquiry for your work. During Unit 3, your cohort will also plan an exhibition as part of Central Saint Martins’ annual degree show which receive tens of thousands of visitors.

MA Graphic Communication Design Programme Specification 2018/19 (PDF, 316KB)

Industry collaborations

During Unit 1 you will work on a client brief which is set collaboratively by the client and academic staff. During this project you are explicitly encouraged to re-write the brief and actively interrogate the conventions of design-client relationships and different models of employment which you might pursue in future. You are also encouraged reflect on the institutional context of a university, and hence your own stance regarding the purpose of your education relative to industry and employment.

In addition to this required element of the course, you are encouraged to engage with co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities provided by GCD at programme level. These include live and sponsored project opportunities ranging from competitive commercial briefs for multi-national companies to explorative projects and challenges set by local government or NGOs, providing a choice of focus and the opportunity to build a portfolio of client based work alongside your main coursework.

Facilities

  • Letterpress

    Find out more about our Letterpress workshop

  • Print Workshops (Archway)

    Find out more about the printmaking facility at Archway

  • Digital Media

    Find out more about our digital media facility at King's Cross

View all facilities

Staff

Course Leader: Dr. Rebecca Ross
Programme Leader:Rebecca Wright
Year Leader: Joao Carilho
Graphic Communication Design Lecturer:Luise Vormittag
Graphic Communication Design Lecturer:Jaap de Maat
Associate Lecturer: Sheena Calvert
Associate Lecturer: Marcus Leis Alion
Associate Lecturer: Paul Finn
Associate Lecturer: Max Colson
Associate Lecturer: Ken Hollings
Associate Lecturer: Andrea Lioy
Typography Subject Leader: Professor Phil Baines
Advertising Subject Leader: Clive Challis
Moving Image Subject Leader: Esteban Gitton
Illustration Subject Leader: Andrew Hall
Context Subject Leader: Dr Paul Rennie
Photography Subject Leader: Gary Wallis
Practitioner in Residence: Paul Elliman
Visiting Practitioner: Guglielmo Rossi



MA Graphic Communication Design

£ 5,550 VAT inc.