Maker? Thinker? Futurist? Coder? Performer? Technologist? Conservationist? Designer? Interested?
Foundation Year
This four-year Art and Design degree course with a Foundation Year has been specifically designed to allow you to undertake an additional year of study which will build stronger creative footings to ensure successful progression through your chosen degree course.
Working in a lively and energetic environment, you will be given the freedom to expand your knowledge of practical skills, creative exploration and conceptual development, underpinned by broad critical understanding, academic writing and emerging theoretical principles.
There will be a range of opportunities to work on collaborative projects aimed to develop employability partnerships and to identify the role of developing practitioner. BA teaching staff from across all schools within the Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts (BICA) will work closely with you throughout the foundation year to prepare you for progression.
After successful completion of your foundation year, you will have the flexibility to switch (should you wish to change direction) onto a number of related undergraduate degree programmes within the Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts.
BA (Hons) Art and Design
Many innovative creative studios now define themselves as interdisciplinary, a word which we define as the fluid movement across the fields of art, design and technology. Rather than specialising in a particular creative discipline, our cutting-edge course reflects how these studios practice by exploring the intersection between art and design, with the implementation of new creative digital technologies.
Our course will prepare you to be ready for employment within the creative industries by providing you with long-term creative skills to map out your creative future. With you at the centre, we will explore the intersections of art and design, providing a space where you can understand, develop and create a career in the evolving creative industries. You will develop the necessary self-awareness to question, make, play and create with others.
The versatility of our experimental studio environment will enable you to explore the necessary collisions that innovative ideas creation now requires, while enhancing a range of core skills including design thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and making.
Whether you choose to combine creative coding with foraging for natural materials, photography with artificial intelligence, or welding with audio performance, you will respond to live briefs set by real-life clients.
The flexible, student-centred approach to the curriculum, informed by professional practitioners, will enable you to be imaginative, confident and convincing in designing and shaping your role in tomorrow’s free flowing, boundary free creative industries.
Creative Technologies Pathway
All students will be introduced to the fundamentals of interdisciplinary art and design practice with a focus on new creative technologies, which forms the core ethos of this course. In line with the development of our digital futures we are introducing an optional pathway in Creative Technologies which will give you the opportunity to focus specifically on further developing your digital skills through a breadth of technological approaches.