Graphic Communication

Graphic communication is at the core of everyday life in domestic, leisure, social and workplace environments. The contemporary communication industries demand high quality graduates with a diverse range of creative skills and flexibility in approach and attitude.

These future designers will also need to embrace a greater awareness of the ethical and sustainable requirements expected from the contemporary cultural and creative sector. In response to these demands, the course stresses the importance of conceptual and creative thinking, problem solving and the harnessing of analysis and theory to help solve practical problems.

LEVEL ONE

Level One aims to provide you with a broad graphic communication and design experience. You will engage with a range of technical skills together with the study and application of conceptual and creative thinking. An investigation of typographic design, image creation, photography, print, layout and the application of word and image is undertaken, supported by introductions in relevant software.

Projects, working to live and simulated briefs, will expose you to a range of disciplines including advertising, promotion, corporate identity, information and publishing design, web and interactive communication and product packaging.

Your studio work will be supported through a programme of contextual studies and introductions to Business and Professional Studies in which you will begin to explore the context within which you work. You will develop a host of interpretive and theoretical skills such as creative thinking and visualisation that will improve your professional outlook.

There may also be opportunities for work-based learning both in the studio and through work placements within industry.

LEVEL TWO

Level Two offers you a programme of further study that sets out to enhance your intellectual, imaginative and technical abilities through integrated academic and work based learning. The study programme enables you to shape your experience according to your individual interests. There are opportunities for further work-based learning, group work and individual work placements, which will continue to inform your Business and Professional Studies.

You will continue to explore the context of your work through both your studio practice and your contextual studies. This will see you investigate a range of job functions including individual designer, art director or member of a creative team.

You will also undertake industry case studies and other practical and professional insights to ensure you gain a cultural and economic perspective in the creation of your work.

The concluding phase of your study enables you to select your own study topics so that you may develop a personal focus as you create your final major project.

LEVEL THREE

Level Three BA (Hons) allows you to consolidate and capitalise on the skills, knowledge and experience gained throughout the course and provides a unique opportunity to generate a sustained body of work that will support you in your future career or further study. You will utilise skills in organisation, management and communication alongside the technical, creative and conceptual skills associated with your subject practice.

You are encouraged to define solutions to problems that require an integrated approach to the application of the disciplines explored through the course. In addition to your studio work, you will produce a Research Report that broadly contextualises your practice and demonstrates your engagement with a sustained piece of written work.

What Makes Us Special

A close working relationship with industry allows us to provide a course that has contributions from leading creatives within the region and beyond. This gives the students a wide and varied work-related experience whilst studying, and a real taste of their future careers ahead through work placement, live briefs and the course lecture programme.

Distinguished and successful visiting lecturers include Iain Tait (Poke), book designer David Pearson, designer Phil Baines and Laura Jordan Bambach (LBi). Students have been successful in securing employment in design consultancies, advertising agencies, print, publishing and packaging companies both nationally and internationally.

Students who successfully complete their undergraduate studies are able to progress to a range of MA courses at NUCA, in particular the MA Communication Design, which covers graphics, illustration, publishing, typography and related fields.