If you want to break into the world of graphic design and visual communication, this course emerges you within industry-ways before you even graduate. Experiment across a variety of media and find your style, whilst bringing stories, brands and products to life to audience all over the world.
What will I study?
This course is offered as four-year programmes, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme.
Studying on the course will help prepare you for this continually expanding field. Not only will we support you as an individual in the development of your visual and creative problem-solving skills, but we also equipped you with the knowledge and confidence to enter and negotiate your career in this challenging, but exciting field.
Over the course of the degree, you'll be given lots of opportunities to explore the diverse world of graphic design and its practice, including vital skills in creative problem solving, research methods, team working, project management, presentation skills, design strategy, art direction and independent learning.
Opportunity modules are a key part of the BNU curriculum. You’ll choose modules in both your first and second year from a broad selection in areas such as sustainability, entrepreneurship, creativity, digital skills, personal growth, civic engagement, health & wellbeing and employment. Opportunity modules are designed to enable you to develop outside the traditional boundaries of your discipline and help you to further stand out from the crowd to future employers.
Through practical hands-on, project-based learning you'll explore the fundamental core aspects of the subject like typography, narrative structure, hierarchy, layout and composition, information design, image creation and conceptual thinking skills.
You’ll develop your historical perspectives, research, and writing skills and gain the academic grounding on which to develop critical understanding and practical application. As well as this you'll explore the many workshop facilities and equipment our design department has to offer, from laser cutting and letterpress printing, to photography and the Adobe Creative Suite. Our experienced technical instructors will be there in your workshop sessions to support you with your activities and help bring your ideas to life.
We always encourage our students to take risks in their work and learn to challenge established languages and processes through questioning and individual experimentation. All our modules on this course reflect this ethos, they are in place to help you form and consolidate presentation, critical and strategic thinking, and complex problem-solving skills, whilst at the same time developing and refining practical design abilities.
What facilities can I use?
The course is located within the School of Art, Design and Performance, giving you access to a community of creative learners and diverse resources to help you achieve your creative outcomes. You’ll be encouraged to explore both traditional and current mediums to craft your design solutions, you can do this through our;
- silkscreen equipment
- plotter cutters
- letterpress equipment
- photography studios
- litho equipment
- laser cutting
- 3D printing technology
- Adobe Creative Cloud
You also benefit from our specialist technicians and demonstrators on site, who can support you in the area you want to explore.
The Graphic Design course itself is situated in an open plan studio alongside the Creative Advertising course, meaning you get to experience how a working advertising and design agency would run in the real-world.
For further details please visit our website.
