Master of Arts in Photography Arts

at University of Westminster - Harrow Campus United Kingdom

Our Fashion Design BA has an exceptional reputation for being aligned with the international fashion industry and enabling you to have outstanding opportunities to engage with the industry throughout your course. 

We specialise in enabling you to become a highly original and individual creative designer, capable of working at the highest levels of the international fashion industry. We were the first undergraduate course to show at London Fashion Week, and able to show in February 2020, prior to the national lockdown.

Throughout our course, the emphasis is on the development of your personal design philosophy. Our course offers a comprehensive design education for dedicated and ambitious individuals looking for a specialist career in the international fashion industry. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.

Our students gain an enormous amount of specific and transferable knowledge from working within the fashion industry, whether these are in the context of ‘live’ design projects at university or out on extended periods of work placement.

Internships on both the three-year and sandwich course take place in partnership with leading international fashion companies, and have previously included: A Cold Wall, Alexander McQueen, Ashley Williams, Balmain, Burberry, Chalayan, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Charlotte Knowles, Christopher Kane, Cottweiller, Craig Green, Eckhaus Latta, Erdem, Eudon Choi, Gareth Pugh, Givenchy, Haider Ackermann, Halpern, JW Anderson, Kenzo, Kilgour, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Maison Margiela, Marine Serre, Marques Almeida, Molly Goddard, Nazir Nasar, Norse Projects, Peter Pilotto, Phoebe English, Preen, Raf Simons, Richard Quinn, Roksanda, Self Portrait, Simone Rocha, Stefan Cooke, Supriya Lele, Thom Browne, Underage, Viktor & Rolf, and Walter van Bierendonck. 

Embedded into the course structure are several opportunities to engage with the international fashion industry through set live briefs with companies. Previous companies have included FENTY, The Gap, CLOSED denim, Epson, Topshop, H&M, ISKO Denim, Max Mara, Abercrombie and ASOS. 

Course graduates include London Fashion Week designers Katie Ann McGuigan, Roberta Einer, Liam Hodges and Ashley Williams, as well as Jutta Kraus, Creative Director of Bernhard Willhelm; Stuart Vevers, Creative Director of Coach; Christopher Bailey; and Katie Hillier.

Our previous Fashion Design BA graduates have gained employment at companies including Versace, Rick Owens, Celine, Loewe, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Carven, Tom Ford, Gucci, Versace, Ferragamo, Kenzo, H&M, Preen, MaxMara, Anya Hindmarch, Burberry, J.W. Anderson, Norse Projects, Acne, Jacquemus, Paul Smith and adidas.

The Graphic Design BA aims to provide an intellectual and creative space for you to explore and develop a wide range of skills and understanding around the discipline of graphic design.

This is applied through a variety of current and emerging technologies and processes for visual communication. The evolving and fluid forms of published and experiential exchanges include interactions with audiences and users across digital, physical, and virtual environments.

The breadth and range of the facilities and processes available support creative learning that is interdisciplinary, collaborative and professional – embracing technologies and practices found in current industry work environments.

This course offers a flexible, interdisciplinary, and multi-faceted approach to the study of contemporary graphic design practice across a broad range of contexts and projects that are industry facing as well as experimental, discipline critical and research led. It will prepare you with the highest level of practical and employable skills, knowledge and visual understanding required to both work and lead in this sector of the creative industry today.

Study and learning on the course are encouraging, inclusive and supportive, fostering your aptitudes and individual expression in the work you produce while offering wide and in-depth visual inquiry and experimentation.

Throughout the course, there is a wide range of optional choice modules that support individualised creative agility, enabling you to be flexible and resilient, while also making you industry ready to adapt your practice rapidly within evolving employments, periods of change, new and emerging communication and societal driven exchanges and technologies.

This course is designed to produce the future leaders of the Public Relations Industry. You will not only learn the practical skills required to embark on a career in PR but also the research and analysis skills that will help you get ahead. You will create campaigns, pitch to clients, stage a press conference and create videos and blogs, as well as write research reports, essays and a dissertation. You will also explore issues affecting the industry, such as professional ethics and the impact of digital media.

The course combines practice skills with analytical tools and is highly participative. You will take part in workshops, debates, seminars, presentations and group exercises including making pitches and presenting creative campaign ideas.

There are no formal examinations on this course. You are assessed on course work including essays, presentations, blogs, group work and your participation in class exercises.

The course is designed for recent graduates seeking a career in traditional and new media organisations. It provides a combination of business and media skills designed to equip you to take up an entry-level position in today’s media organisations.

You will learn how media organisations are engaging with the challenges resulting from the emergence of digital media technologies and platforms. The course introduces you to the processes by which media organisations develop their corporate strategies, business plans, marketing and production operations as they respond to radical change in the commercial environment.

The course is designed to enable you to find and take up work placements and internships at media organisations in London during the course of your studies. Our students have successfully completed internships at TV production companies like the BBC, technology companies like Google, as well as many other multimedia, advertising and news organisations in London. Some have successfully started their own businesses in the UK.

Whether you are planning a career in a media organisation or seeking to create your own new business start up, the MA International Media Business aims to provide the analytical insight, operational knowledge and planning skills you will need to prosper. The course is taught alongside a suite of Masters courses in Westminster’s highly successful Centre for Creative Industries Management.

Digital and Interactive Storytelling LAB MA is a new and innovative course, designed for digital storytellers and shaped like a media LAB. This means that during the course you will be able to produce a wide range of digital-first work for multi-platform formats. Your work will be underpinned with academic research, theories and expertise on mobile platforms, and digital interactive communication.

The course delivers industry-level professional expertise in visual communication from photography to video content creation, interactive narratives and apps for change.

You’ll be involved in creating content that extends beyond current ideas in multimedia and online productions – as our aim is to advance storytelling as a format of communication and as a practice.

We recognise how competitive the job market currently is, therefore this Master's has been created to develop your skills and knowledge in a way that will enhance your career development.

The Photography Arts MA offers a dynamic mix of photography practice and research to support your development as an artist. Students learn to navigate the rapidly changing field of contemporary photography, while preparing themselves for diverse career paths. Each student develops two distinct bodies of work to exhibition and/or publication standard, as well as deepening their research and writing. Your progress through the course is supported with one-to-one meetings with a personal tutor, as well as lectures, seminars, tutorials and critique sessions. You will be empowered with visual, critical and practical skills that culminate in the Masters Project, exhibited in a central London degree show.

Students are fully supported by our internationally renowned photography staff and inspired by an exciting range of prominent visiting photographic artists and thinkers. Situated in Westminster School of Media, Arts and Design, you will have access to extensive photographic facilities and a wealth of inter-disciplinary expertise. You will be part of a world-famous centre for photography research.

Our Contemporary Media Practice BA is built on our long tradition of teaching interdisciplinary media practice, working across moving image, photography and interactive media.

Our unique approach combines the creative exploration of art school traditions with academic and professional excellence. We have extensive industry-level facilities and equipment, and to develop your skills and knowledge we use a variety of assessment methods, including practical projects, presentations, written work, research tasks and portfolios.

Our course sets high standards for professional achievement in specific media industry roles, and prepares you for the challenge of a multi-skilled portfolio career. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development. Our graduates have a high employment rate across the media industries, including broadcast television; commercial photography and photojournalism; curating and film programming; film direction, production, editing and visual effects; fine art practice; and new media. 

Studying this course will enable you to develop your creative media production skills across a range of disciplines, and give you the ability to adapt to the creative opportunities of new media forms and hybrids. It will enhance your ability to participate in contemporary cultural debates, and develop your awareness of the political, ethical and aesthetic implications of your work.

This exciting new multidisciplinary Master's programme is fully designed to reflect the needs of contemporary interactive media industries, bringing together creative technologies, interactivity and design practices within digital cultures with the user in mind.

Interactive Media Practice combines a wide range of digital creative technologies primarily combining digital literacies design, technology and interaction, through user-centred design for commercial outputs to an industry standard.

Interactive Media Practice places the user at the centre of the experience and focuses on design and content creation in areas such as mobile app development, wearables, games, rich media websites, interactive guides and installations, immersive VR, next generation advertising and virtual and augmented reality systems, through to social media powerful eMarketing and entrepreneurship through innovation protocol.

This course will equip you with the strategic decision-making, leadership and problem-solving skills you will need to become an entrepreneurial and visionary fashion business leader of the future. It continues the University’s fashion tradition of a commitment to excellence in developing highly effective, talented and committed professional fashion graduates.

Working closely with fashion industry professionals, role models and mentors, you will receive a relevant, well-grounded, high-quality education and skill base that will enable you to have a wider, clearer understanding of the business you are already involved in. The course offers inside knowledge of industry strategies and cultures on a global basis, combined with key business skills and essential fashion industry management knowledge.

This course equips you for a business management career in the domestic or international fashion industry. Delivered by a teaching team with a wide range of experience both in industry and academia, the course offers an innovative and relevant fashion business curriculum that focuses on preparing your entry into senior roles in business and management within the industry.

Our innovative Fine Art Mixed Media BA will give you the opportunity to explore and develop work across boundaries, within the ever-expanding contemporary fine art disciplines.

Our course enables you to work across disciplines or within the more traditionally defined areas of practice, while referencing relevant critical and theoretical debates.

You'll be encouraged to bring highly individual approaches to studio practice, coupled with an emphasis on experiential learning – these are the defining factors that have established the course at the cutting edge of contemporary practice.

We encourage creativity, individuality and personal growth, and once you've acquired the basic skills you can negotiate your own individual programme of study with tutors.

We select only the most dedicated and creative students who have the energy, enthusiasm and commitment that our course requires.

Based at our Harrow Campus, you'll work alongside students from film, photography, music, fashion and journalism, in a unique hothouse of creative opportunity. 

Our studio-based course provides you with a permanent space, depending on the type of work you engage with as you progress through the programme.

You'll be taught by practising artists with national and international profiles working in and across the mediums of sculpture, painting, moving image, performance, photography and sound. Our exceptional team are supported by state-of-the-art facilities and workshops that are at the forefront of current technical innovation.

Our teaching and learning methods will encourage you to create a body of work characterised by personal commitment and an increasing sense of autonomy.

Our teaching methods include lectures, tutorials (individual and group), presentations, crits, workshops, and gallery visits and talks. 

Fine art disciplines include:

• Digital
• Drawing
• Installation
• Intervention
• Interdisciplinary
• Moving image
• Painting
• Performance
• Photography
• Printmaking
• Sculpture
• Sound