Graphic Design MA

About the course

The Graphic Design MA is part of the School of Art and Humanities MA Art & Design Suite, an innovative approach to postgraduate taught education that brings together disciplines from across art and design to produce a collaborative programme of courses that foreground the shared practices, processes and values of art and design in the 21st century.

Graphic Design is at the forefront of the design world – creating brand imagery and curating a global audience. Graphics is made up of many different creative processes and inhabits a multitude of contexts.

The Masters course provides an opportunity for you to hone your professional approaches to the discipline. In the creation of graphic design for different commercial and creative platforms, the world of the designer occupies both physical and digital arenas. Increasingly innovative and dynamic modes of production shape our communication tool of the future. The course offers continuing students or graduates from creative art and design subjects with an opportunity to enhance their knowledge, creative skills and employment prospects.

Our course aims to enable you to:

• Critically appraise the importance of social, ethical, technological and cultural dimensions of graphic design as applied to your personal practice and that of others.
• Evidence advanced knowledge and understanding of graphic design and its current and emerging global applications such as, but not limited to, signage, branding, packaging, online communication, user-experience, motion graphics.
• Systematically plan, negotiate and implement topical research to substantiate a coherent body of advanced graphic design practice.
• Contribute to the principles and processes of graphic design in supporting innovation within commercial or creative industries.
• Evidence awareness and relevance of your work in relation to professional standards in graphic design practice such as through high-quality proposals and presentation responding to design problems, client expectation or market opportunity.

Our course aims to encourage you to push the boundaries of graphic practice with the development of innovative and imaginative concepts and ideas relevant to the design of graphic products and artefacts. We will introduce you to a variety of platforms and a range of situations and contexts within which graphic design sits, enabling you to experiment, expand, progress and communicate your ideas through different forms and processes, both digital and print-based.

Entry requirements

Entry requirements for this course are normally:

• An Honours degree (2:2 or above) in a relevant subject or an equivalent professional qualification.
• Alternative qualifications and/or significant experience may be accepted, subject to approval.
• International students with qualifications in 'creative' or 'practice' subjects should submit a digital portfolio (pdf) of work with their application.
• All suitably qualified applicants are normally invited in for an informal chat with a portfolio or considered for admittance under alternative arrangements.

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.0 overall with no element lower than 5.5, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.

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