Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Graphic Design

at Leeds Arts University United Kingdom

This dynamic course will encourage you to take a creative approach to fashion branding with communication, and develop an individual practice that is underpinned by a social, cultural, political and ethical awareness of this global industry.

You will explore a diverse range of evolving theories and practices that underpin fashion branding, and have opportunities to develop skills in: creative direction and styling, image making, editorial copy, advertising, exhibition design and styling, fashion films, visual merchandising and experiential campaigns.

With new technologies increasingly influencing the industry, you’ll study futurology and investigate theories to apply to augmented and virtual reality, mobile technology user interface design, and digital and social media platform communications that will turn such future-facing ideas into reality.

There will be opportunities to work collaboratively with students on other courses. You will have contact with industry through opportunities such as visiting speakers, live projects, industry briefs and competitions to ensure that you develop professional skills.

Our MA Animation course gives practitioners a year to create an animated film from start to finish. You will engage in a critical dialogue with practice, theory and the professional aspects of animation.

The course provides space for the animators to make work of cultural value, but understand commercial practices. The curriculum is designed to allow both individual and collaborative practice to take place. However, we positively encourage collaboration as it is a key part of the animation production process, enabling you to undertake ambitious projects.

The course will provide you with the space to develop animation, think and question what animation has the potential to be and how it communicates to an audience. You also will have the opportunity to explore emerging technologies and new approaches to storytelling such as the use of VR and game technologies.

You will be supported by a team with diverse research and practical interests within animation including 2D and 3D animators, modelmakers, scriptwriters and you will also engage with visiting industry professionals. The course will present you with the opportunities to work with other creatives on the course and across other MA courses within the institution. The objective is to enable students to produce engaging work across all forms of animation from animated shorts, documentary and experimental practices.

Our MA Curation Practices is ideal for those who wish to focus on the expansive field of curation by contributing to growing areas of practice within the commercial, education, arts and heritage industries.

Students will develop a synthesised skill set in preparation to enter the profession or continue further study. Perfectly situated in a specialist arts community, students will be surrounded by the study and production of creative artefacts. Specialist tutors, visiting lecturers and professional curators provide a stimulating range of study topics including audience engagement. Students will also be supported to advance their object handling and installation skills.

We support students in identifying curation spaces through our partnership network. This entails students being resident with a partner organisation and in close proximity to professional curators in order to enhance their skills, experience and knowledge for a career in the discipline. Students are also encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning through forging contacts and securing space for curatorial projects.

Our MA Creative Practice has been devised for creative practitioners, recent graduates and professionals who wish to examine, strengthen and deepen their practice within their own context.

This course offers a bespoke learning experience that is tailored to each student’s practice: a wide range of creative practitioners have all studied on this course.

The course encourages you to pursue an individual research interest for the duration of study which will allow you to examine and strengthen your own practice and place it at the centre of your studies. It addresses the needs of graduates who want to continue to develop their practice and identities in the context of the creative and cultural industries.

Students will maintain contact with other creative practitioners and develop freelance or other career paths in the context of a portfolio career. This course will also prepare those who wish to develop ideas for application to a practice-based PhD.

The course offers unique opportunities to develop a portfolio of creative and critical writing in a lively and stimulating environment.

Writing is a valuable social currency and opens up doors. The creative possibilities of the written word are enhanced and invigorated by working collaboratively alongside established visual and performing arts courses.

You’ll write in the real world and be encouraged to enter competitions, write for review, write to briefs, and write alongside visual and performative creatives. You will be guided through a range of creative writing landscapes including writing for performance, prose writing, short fiction, art criticism, poetry, script writing, novel writing, new media and zines. You will be encouraged to think locally and globally about the place, purpose and reach of writing, exploring online platforms as well as the potential of the festival, gallery and event space.

You will learn to successfully employ a range of critical thinking skills that will enable you to make sound and valid judgements about the value and role of fiction and non-fiction, becoming a critical reader, thinker and producer of language. You’ll consider the role of writing as a social, cultural, historical and political meaning maker, and explore its contemporary relevance. A positive approach to a writing life is emphasised. You are encouraged to develop cultural awareness and a reflective, self-aware and critically analytical mind-set that will equip you to take on the writing world with a portfolio of transferable skills.

This course offers opportunities to engage with diverse and innovative approaches to fashion image-making. It will develop your knowledge and understanding of the lens-based fashion industry and encourage an experimental, creative approach to produce visually striking photographs and films.

Our vibrant and collaborative learning environment will promote the exchange of ideas, and offers ‘hands on’ industry experience in the form of live briefs, publishing and exhibition opportunities, educational trips and commissions. Collaborating with students across the University and with wider creative communities locally, nationally and internationally is supported.

Your programme of study is informed by current and emerging industry contexts and practices, and you will work with highly skilled practitioners and specialist tutors, responding to exciting projects and briefs that develop your creativity, professionalism, preparation for the work place and offer real-life learning opportunities.

The course integrates creative practical projects with analysis of historical, cultural and social contexts of fashion image-making and you will be encouraged to take an experimental and questioning approach to your practice. We invite internationally renowned speakers to give an insight into current industry practices and offer opportunities to engage with external practitioners. In the past our students have been on study visits to Paris, Milan and New York, plus day-trips within the UK. Course related educational visits/trips experiences can take a variety of formats including physical and virtual.

This course provides the framework and critical discourse for the candidate to develop, create, and publish a graphic novel over the course of study.

You will research and develop sequential narrative methods, world-building techniques, and graphic novel publishing and immersive technologies. Engaging with the breadth and depth of what a sequential narrative could be, you will critically examine and contextualise your work in relation to emerging social, political, cultural, and ethical issues. You will work individually and collaboratively to produce a graphic novel that questions the role of the comic artist, audience, distribution and immersive media.

You will be supported by a team with diverse research and practical interests within sequential narrative, comic art and graphic novel culture, working closely with visiting industry professionals. You will challenge what a graphic novel can be, working collaboratively with writers, artists, publishers and readers – the aim is to create externally-engaged, progressive, inclusive, and immersive graphic novels for a diverse and growing readership.

Our Textile Design* course has an outstanding reputation for producing innovative, professional designers. We look for students who will develop their own ‘handwriting’, both anticipating and setting future trends within this field. We value the importance of personal engagement and celebrate diversity that informs creativity.

You will work alongside your peers where we foster a culture of creativity. The course offers you the opportunity to develop your creative practice through experimental engagement with materials and processes. The course actively engages with contemporary and global issues, and ethical concerns relevant to the practice of printed textile and surface design, such as: sustainability, collaborative practices and innovation in surface and textiles. Tutors are experienced educators, researchers and practitioners in the field of textile and surface design. Through their diverse links you will engage with a breadth of contemporary approaches.

The course is committed to external and professional practices with relevant currency, so that our graduates are fully prepared for direct employment by high street and designer brands, further study, self-employment or business start-ups. You will be given opportunities to  participate in a number of prestigious live briefs, competitions and employment related activities to ensure that you are as best prepared for employment in the creative industries as possible.

This course explores creature design through animal anatomy, worldbuilding, and believability across a range of professional contexts, production methods, and industries. 

You will investigate approaches to developing creature designs inspired by existing animals. There is a focus on experimentation to create imaginative creature designs as well as ensuring believability through considering skeletal, muscular and surface anatomies. You will develop creatures and their life cycles, behaviours, relationships with other characters/creatures and interaction with the environment. There may be opportunities for cross-disciplinary influences from science to help inform creature design. Candidates are encouraged to position their work within a professional context to help inform the visual output and production method. There are opportunities for creature designers within entertainment design and beyond, such as paleo reconstruction (visualising prehistoric life) or speculative biology (visualising possible future evolution or life on other planets).

Developing a body of self-negotiated work, you will be supported by a team with diverse research and practical interests within creature design and work closely with visiting industry professionals. You will source briefs, work with clients and apply your contextual and industry informed knowledge and understanding to question what makes a creature design believable. The aim is to create believable creatures that engage with their environment and have a past, present and future.

Our MA Graphic Design explores the fascinating relationship between design-led practice, industry engagement and critical analysis.

You will build a body of self directed work informed by contemporary graphic design practice and emerging debates within the field of design. Driven by problem analysis, critical debate and design innovation you will develop briefs, engage with an audience and work collaboratively. Your investigation will explore the relationship between visual and contextual research, investigating the social, political and ethical contexts of your work.

You will be supported by a team with diverse research and practical interests within graphic design and visual culture, working closely with visiting industry professionals. You will source briefs, work with clients and apply your contextual and industry informed knowledge and understanding to question why graphic design needs to exist and who is the audience - the focus is on becoming a problem seeker not just a problem solver.