Master of Arts in Illustration

at Arts University Bournemouth United Kingdom

This course gives you the opportunity to develop a specialist career, working within fashion/beauty, advertising, documentary/editorial and portrait photography. Through the combination of creativity and technical skill, our students aspire to challenge perceptions, and push boundaries, through making imagery that’s at the forefront of contemporary photographic practice.

Graduates from this course have gone on to create images for clients including Louis Vuitton, Stella McCartney, Chanel, The Times Fashion Supplement, Love Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Huck, Kit Magazine, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Vogue (UK, India and Italy), Nike, Adidas, Lacoste, Wall Street Journal and the BBC.

If you want the opportunity to set the future agenda for commercial photography, and have the commitment and drive to make the most of every opportunity the course can give you, then we would love you to join.

Painting defines its practice through the particularities of the painted field. The making materiality of the unique object, a globally acknowledged cultural history and the dedicated and dynamic relationship of the painted object to the painter. Painting in the 21st century is vital and relevant. Contemporary painting and what it can be, do and declare is meaningful. We ask how, why and according to what means.

The MA Painting course will explore this innovative and expansive territory in depth, dedicating itself to specialist study at postgraduate level.

Our graduates go on to play an active role in the creative industries, from branding consultancies to digital design, publishers to packaging. Many of our graduates have established their own companies. Experimentation and discovery are important values on this course. There is no ‘right answer’ and you will be supported to find your own path as you learn more skills. In addition to developing creative design strategies, we encourage you to bring your own experiences and interests to your work. We value conceptual approaches that attract attention, and then evoke an idea or emotion that is relevant and on target.

As a graphic designer, you’ll have to make decisions in complex and unpredictable situations. You’ll have to react quickly to new information, evolving briefs and advances in technology. On this course, you’ll learn to innovate under pressure and handle issues such as user- centred design, sustainability, emerging technology, service design, information design and interactive design. You’ll engage with leading design companies who set briefs, give talks, and help us to develop the curriculum. You’ll discover your own approach to visual problem solving and graduate with the technical, critical, and conceptual skills that are highly prized by the industry.

Our teaching staff are exceptional. We’ve recently been awarded Gold by the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) which assess quality of teaching.

They’re inspiring teachers, researchers, industry practitioners and technicians who are all here to support you with your studies and help you to achieve outstanding outcomes.

Our teaching staff are exceptional. We’ve recently been awarded Gold by the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) which assesses the quality of teaching.

Our Dance degree runs in partnership with Pavilion Dance South West (PDSW), the National Dance Development Organisation for the South West. We have our own, purpose-built dance studios on campus and we also have the use of PDSW’s town centre studios. This is a perfect combination of both professional and educational environments. You'll be able to build a network of collaborators and professionals to help you launch your own creative career.

This degree will also enable you to understand the current dance industry and meet the professionals running it. On campus, you can make the most of our culture of collaboration by exploring AUB’s creative community and all that it has to offer. You’ll finish with a degree and the skills to be a dance artist, capable of thinking about dance in new and relevant ways. This is a competitive market, but you're one of a kind and have something great to offer. We’ll help you to become a dance professional with an edge.

Students apply to the course predominantly from graphic design courses but are welcomed from a variety of backgrounds (if they can show an aptitude for typography). Students may have studied photography, architecture, illustration, interaction design, three-dimensional design, fine art, or, subjects such as journalism, philosophy, psychology, anthropology or sociology.

Whatever your background, you’ll be required to reflect on your worldview; the underlying assumptions and understanding that guides and constrains your practice, and to use this reflection as a starting point from which to further develop. Your practice can take many forms: it can be self-expressive, or socially orientated; print, screen-based or three-dimensional.

It can focus on an aspect of a well-defined area of design, such as branding, experimental typography, publishing, and user-centred design, or on something more unconventional defined as part of your study.

Graphic designers often work in groups, sometimes comprising members from different disciplines. MA Graphic Design provides many opportunities to work in interdisciplinary ways as it sits alongside the courses of other disciplines. Many of the taught sessions such as the introduction to research methods and processes occur in these interdisciplinary groups. At other times however you’ll be developing your project with your supervisor and other students on your course. This will require you to develop a theoretical framework, methodology and research methods that support your research focus.

As a graphic designer you should anticipate the possible consequences of your design interventions, including the meanings constructed through your practice, in relation to ethical and sustainability issues as well as to other relevant contexts. Creative approaches are required that respond to complex situations in which many problems reside. Outcomes are not constrained by media or by limited interpretations of what it is to be a graphic designer.

Consequently, an outcome might involve the design of an experience or service, as much as it might concern more conventional forms of graphic production.

MA Historical Costume engages you in the potential of performance design and garment construction to explore complex ideas; some of which could stray into other areas of artistic experimentation. Students may come to the course with a background in costume, fashion, textiles or theatre/performance design or you may have studied subjects from across the humanities including arts and performance.

This master’s program supports and encourages you to investigate individual practice within an interdisciplinary framework, whilst developing a critical theoretical context for your work. The very special and unique nature of course delivery, through shared lectures, seminars, critiques and tutorials encourages both a ‘freewheeling’ atmosphere as well as an intense immersion in creative practice.

Whether you are interested in looking at historical influences or current socio-political issues related to dress, you will challenge the context of your study in design or historical costume construction within the broader framework of contemporary practice.

On this course you’ll learn practical, professional and entrepreneurial skills that equip you to work as part of a team, or even set up your own business in textiles.

You’ll study textiles in its widest sense and learn many skills, from print, stitch embellishment to dyeing and mixed media construction. You’ll have the opportunity to focus on a variety of specialist areas, including textiles for fashion, textiles for interiors and textiles as design/crafts.

Traditional skills are taught together with expertise in modern design development, production, and contemporary invention. Whether you go on to work for a retail brand, or an international design house, we will prepare you for the challenges that the creative textile industry holds.

We've also formed an AUB textiles Agency to promote student work at Premier Vision Paris and London Print Textile Trade Fairs. Students have engaged with industry – experiencing how the business buys and sells textiles.

This two-year, studio-based course, is the second part of the three-part qualification in becoming an architect. This design-based professional qualification, accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB).

You’ll work alongside fellow makers, collaborators, and enablers who have come from different schools around the world; you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate across the arts. The course philosophy has many connections and develops on from the four key issues identified in the BA (Hons) Architecture (ARB/RIBA part 1).

This course takes its approach from the context of the ‘shared studio-based arts university’ where all courses are making. This philosophy is applied throughout the taught units by emphasising the role of drawing, models and texts in the making of architecture; the things we make – to think about the things we make.

As a student you’ll be asked to develop projects with strong narratives commenting on current social, cultural and environmental issues. In each unit you’re encouraged to give architectural expression to your own personal views and visions, whilst aiming to produce tangible propositions, mindful of how they might be realised.

Studio Culture

The studio is both professional and exploratory. This educational experience is grounded in a strong studio culture of making and thinking, supported by regular lectures by practitioners, seminars and reviews.

The studio generates an atmosphere in which open, critical and reflective practice supports exploration and risk-taking where we test, discuss and present ideas. We’re particularly focused in delivering studio-based and student-centred learning environment.

We offer shared facilities such as the workshop, fab-labs, the print room and the Drawing Studio.

Personal, Professional and Ecological Development

The course will support your personal development towards a creative contribution to architecture and the wider world after graduation. The final Thesis Design year gives you the opportunity to develop your own research design project that integrates making and collaboration through an ecological narrative.

Animation’s position as an interdisciplinary field that draws from Art and Design, Film, Computing, Fine Art, Graphics (and other areas besides) necessarily means that top-level graduates in the field will have mastered a cross-disciplinary understanding of a range of skills, techniques, theories and discourses.

The overriding objective is to enable all MA Animation Production students to see themselves as part of a ‘community of practice’ (that includes research and critique, and the building of a ‘production culture’), existing not as atomised students ‘doing their own thing’, but as part of a meaningful whole.

You’ll be a BA graduate in Animation or a related discipline. Although we will consider good graduates from other disciplines – having accepted them from Costume, Graphics, Digital Media, Illustration, Modelmaking, Photography and Fine Art in the past – you must have some understanding of the animation production process to prosper on this course.

Our alumni have gone on to work at Aardman, ILM, Lupus Films, Framestore, Pixar, Moving Picture Company and many other companies. We’re proud of the network of AUB graduates who are now employed in animation – many of whom return to talk to current students.

Visual Communication combines skills in illustration, graphic design, typography and digital design to create images that persuade or inform.

From the start, the course focuses on hand-drawn imagery to develop a feel for the shapes and styles that connect with audiences. Practical experiences will be used to develop your skills. We’ll help you to build your visual awareness and understanding of the world around you. In addition to plenty of theory and debate, you’ll have the chance to work on live briefs with other students and find work placements in creative businesses.

Visual Communication underlines the importance of good ideas. You’ll leave with all the practical skills that you need to work in a vibrant and exciting industry. Our graduates work as freelancers in small design companies and with larger firms, both locally and internationally.