Graphic Design BA (Hons)

Program Overview

The Graphic Design BA (Hons) from the University of Bedfordshire provides a comprehensive foundation in visual communication, emphasizing practical design, creative problem-solving, and industry connections. Students delve into diverse areas of graphic design, including digital media, web design, typography, illustration, and moving image, while exploring critical themes such as climate change and social justice. The program's focus on real-world projects and collaborations prepares graduates for a range of creative careers in graphic design, illustration, and advertising.

Program Outline

Graphic Design BA (Hons) - University of Bedfordshire

Degree Overview:

This program offers a solid foundation in contemporary forms of visual communication, combining practical design skills with creative problem-solving. It explores various contexts where graphic design is found, including:

• Digital content
• Interface design
• Web and social media
• Editorial design
• Print and publishing
• Moving image
• Visual identity
• Typography
• Graphic illustration
The program engages with important themes like the climate emergency and social justice.

Outline:

Content:

• Communication Design: Exploring Materials and Methods: This unit explores a range of skills, methods, and material processes for communication design, focusing on image making and storytelling.
• Communication Design: Developing Materials and Methods: This unit involves researching, testing, and experimenting with creative production methods and material processes for communication design.
• Thinking Through Making: This unit encourages students to take creative risks and develop a graphic aesthetic sense through various technologies, software, print, RISO, web, AR, and different work processes and ideas.
• Context and Ideas: This unit introduces key theories on art and design, exploring their impact on culture and society.
• Critical and Creative Contexts: This unit explores issues and critical debates in the field of contemporary art and design, providing valuable insights for the Final Major Project.
• Final Major Project: Graphic Design: This unit allows students to pursue their creative interests and channel them into a piece of work for public display.
• Collaborative Enterprise: This unit involves applying knowledge and expertise gained throughout the course into a collaborative interdisciplinary project.
• Context and Meaning: This unit critically examines a range of texts on art, design, and visual culture, placing theory and practice into global contexts.
• Introducing Studio Practice: This unit develops discipline-specific skills and experience, including independent learning, self-confidence, collaborative working, and reflection.
• Creative Futures: This unit provides skills and knowledge needed for a professional creative role, supporting students in developing a career that aligns with their ambitions and interests.
It encourages participation in live projects, competition briefs, and group work while developing a creative persona online, in exhibitions, and elsewhere.
• Developing Professional Practice: This unit teaches students to incorporate independence and professionalism in presenting their work, developing confidence to take creative risks through live projects that address real-world needs, from local community engagement to global problems like the climate emergency.

Structure:

• The program is offered as a three-year full-time course.
• A four-year option with a Professional Practice Year is available, offering a year placement in industry.

Assessment:

• Methods:
• Coursework, including examples of Graphic Design visual communication, 3-D work, installation research portfolios, notebooks, research assignments, essays, contextual writing.
• Individual and group presentations.
• Portfolio reviews, which are crucial for assessing work and collating it for a professional portfolio.
• Essays and reports, which develop writing skills and help express ideas in various ways and styles.
• A midpoint Formal Formative Assessment to review all work in progress.
• Criteria:
• Assessments develop incrementally across the course, allowing students to gain skills, confidence, and knowledge, receive feedback, and implement it in subsequent assessments.
• Completion of assessments demonstrates the ability to analyze current design practice in relation to Graphic Design and communicate it in both written and visual formats.
• Assessments also demonstrate a range of transferable skills relevant to professional employability.

Teaching:

• Methods:
• Faculty:
• Course Leader:
Noel Douglas, an internationally recognized Artist and Designer with over 30 years of experience teaching and running his own studio.
• Staff Team: Includes designers, illustrators, and animators educated at the Royal College of Art and the National Film School.
• Unique Approaches:
• The program emphasizes practical experience and industry links, with collaborations with Luton Town Football Club, the NHS, Luton Council, and MSA University in Cairo, Egypt.
• Students have the opportunity to work on live projects through national competitions and awards, such as D&AD, RSA Student Awards, and Penguin Design Award.
• The program offers internships at the in-house alumni-led studio, Guildford Street Press, providing live experience working on projects for external clients.
• Weekly World of Work guest talks from creative-industry professionals provide insights into finding a first job and establishing oneself as an independent creative.
• Regular field trips to Somerset House, Tate Museum, and the Design Museum enhance the learning experience.

Careers:

• Potential Career Paths:
• Graphic design
• Digital and interactive design
• Advertising
• Editorial and book publishing
• Animation
• Television and video
• Public or community arts participation
• Museum and exhibition work
• Arts education
• Freelance creative practice
• Teaching
• Opportunities:
• The program integrates employability skills and provides awareness of the real-world context of the creative industries.
• Students develop a strategy for obtaining appropriate employment after graduation.
• A work-related unit helps students focus on managing their careers.
• Students receive support in preparing a professional portfolio, including a CV, and are taught social media skills to promote themselves in the art and design world.
• Outcomes:
• The program aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in a variety of creative roles.
• Graduates are prepared for entry-level positions in the design and creative industries.
• Students may also progress to further study at the Master's level in related fields, such as graphic design, visual communication, web digital media, or motion graphics.

Other:

• Facilities and Specialist Equipment:
• Spacious studios and facilities in Alexon House, the previous home of the Alexon and Eastex fashion company.
• Excellent studio facilities, including screen printing, large format printing, RISO printing, and a photo studio.
• Mac computers with access to Creative Cloud, Dragonframe, and TB Paint software.
• Creative Cloud for personal use.
• Equipment, including drawing tablets, cameras, C-stands, and colored gels.
• A 360° green-screen room with a motion-capture suit.
• Student Experience:
• Students develop a reflective, outward-looking approach to design challenges and become adept at using various platforms, from digital to print, moving image to illustration.
• Students gain a solid knowledge of the cultural, critical, and creative contexts of contemporary practice, including how social media has transformed the role of the graphic designer.
• The program is located in Luton's Hat District, a vibrant creative quarter just 20 minutes from Central London.

• UK 2023/24
The full-time standard undergraduate tuition fee for the Academic Year 2023/24 is £9,250 per year. See www.gov.uk/student-finance
• Merit Scholarship
The Bursary will give you £1,000 over three academic years, or £1,300 if you are taking your course over four academic years (including those with a Foundation Year).

International

The full-time standard undergraduate tuition fee for the academic year 2023/24 is £15,500 per year. A full list of scholarships can be found here.