Course Overview
The focus of the course is very much on producing informed designers and technically skilled graduates who are well placed to pursue careers in graphic design. Cambridge School of Art develops individuals, capable of creative and independent thought, with the confidence and ability to deliver significant input within a professional environment.
Cambridge School of Art offers an academically rich and visually diverse environment for you to enhance your understanding of graphic communication and to develop your ability as an innovative designer. As an undergraduate you will explore a wide range of graphic disciplines - and their professional contexts.
Course content is based upon graphic, typographic, text-image relationships and the visual communication of information and ideas. The main focus is on the development of both intellectual and practical skills, to a level required in professional practice. Access to our excellent on-campus digital facilities and design studios will provide you with real understanding of contemporary design processes using industry-standard design software and technology.
The course embraces new areas of practice, including site specific, conceptual, interactive, hypertextual and multimedia work, and does so in a way that values informed visual literacy, cultural awareness and the imaginative exploration of new ideas. Principal teaching methods focus on practice via design briefs and are principally studio or workshop based that will prepare you for your future career.
The course designate modules allow you to explore areas of particular interest, and to prepare for your future career.
Year 1 core modules
• Design Process
• Contextual Studies
• Graphic Design of the 20th Century
Year 2 core modules
• Design Practice
• Debates and Practices
Year 3 core modules
• Graphic Futures
• Research Project
• Major Project
Year 1 optional modules
• Introduction to Type Media
• Introduction to Image Media
• Introduction to Web Design
• Anglia Language Programme Module
Year 2 optional modules
• Graphic Environments
• Motion Graphics
• Printmaking: Materials, Processes & Ideas
• Identities
• Issues Across Contemporary Design
• Writing for Images
• Contemporary Film and Video
• Anglia Language Programme
Key Facts
Final award
Faculty
Location
Duration
Assessment
Assessment is via the submission of design project outcomes within practice-based modules, and by written submissions within contextual and theoretical lecture/seminar modules.
The course also places a high emphasis upon continual feedback on design project concepts and development via one-to-one discourse, project reviews and more formal group critiques
Facilities
Teaching takes place within a well resourced and dynamic learning environment in the Cambridge School of Art; comprising two formal digital Mac Suites surrounded by other resource rooms, providing further networked workstations and more informal seminar and critique areas, as well as access to the dedicated resource areas of letterpress and printmaking.
All workstations are equipped with current industry standard software for the Apple Mac, which remains the chosen platform within the graphic design profession.
Special features
The MDes is a four-year integrated Masters programme, enabling you to to opt for combined Undergraduate and Masters level study over four years rather than undergraduate study over three years.
The MDes is distinguished by an emphasis upon practical mastery in a professional context. It is designed to develop those skills and capabilities that equip a student to make the transition from the role of designer to consultant and entrepreneur, either with a view to self-employment, partnership or management of SME, or to entering employment in their field at a strategic level concerned with consultancy and project management issues.
Associated careers
This course is particular invaluable to anyone wishing to pursue a career as a graphic designer.
However, it also provides a good basis as a designer for entry into a wide range of related fields and industries, such as: digital graphics, media communications, publishing, advertising and marketing promotions, and of course teaching or further postgraduate study. Our graduates embark upon careers in advertising and branding, as information designers, as editorial and book designers, as freelance designers, and also as designers within the web and interactive media.
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Studying at Cambridge School of Art is the first step in landing your dream job, so go ahead and drop us a line today - your career starts here...
