BA (Hons) Graphic Design

Creativity, craft and community. If you’re looking for a career where you’ll never stop exploring, experimenting and creating a positive impact on the world around you, graphic design could be the one for you.  

Our course is your chance to dive into a world of contemporary design, try incredible techniques and make lifelong friendships with like-minded creatives. It’s a career launchpad like no other – and it’s taken our graduates to some pretty impressive places. If you love expressing yourself visually, testing out new processes, making work that makes people go ‘wow’ and learning from the best – this course could be right up your street. 

What are the facilities like? 

Amazing. Learn in our vibrant, dedicated studio spaces and Mac labs. Do your research in our 24/7 library. Craft something unique in our screen-printing, bookbinding and hack spaces. And try your hand at new techniques in our 3D design and laser-cutting workshops.  

You’ll spend your first year immersed in our studio, getting a solid grounding in print and digital projects, working alongside our Illustration students. You’ll be constantly challenged, supported and encouraged as you learn technical skills, experiment, take risks and push new boundaries. If you’re also considering our Illustration degree, you can explore both and easily swap between the two in the first three months. 

You’ll begin by learning the understated power of typography, logo design, brand identity and layout – fundamentals that will underpin your craft, whatever direction you take. With them under your belt, at the end of the year you’ll have the option of continuing on a pure Graphic Design pathway or switching to our Graphic Design: Advertising and Branding degree. 

Your second year is a dynamic mixture of personal experimentation, balanced with a more professional focus. Regular sessions encourage you to develop your own visual style; whilst workshops teach more advanced software skills as well as a variety of printing techniques, collaborations with the other pathways and an international study trip. The year is also about working on live briefs with some of the world’s highest profile design agencies and developing your portfolio and building a CV. There’s the chance to explore everything today’s tech has to offer, crafting your website, building your social media profile and creating a unique narrative that shows top design employers what an amazing designer you are. Throughout the course we’ll help you to investigate, understand and critique the history of the subject, the theories behind what’s happening in contemporary design as well as looking into future trends.  

Work placement/study abroad option: Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s absolutely fine too.  

By the time you start your final year, you’ll have a solid understanding of design and the specialisms that fire your imagination. You’ll pick from a huge range of creative projects, workshops and live briefs as well as developing your own self-directed projects — building a completely personal, standout portfolio. We’ll encourage original thinking, but we’ll also give you tons of support, inspiration and encouragement.  

And we won’t be the only ones. Throughout your course, we’ll invite amazing designers to lead workshops, set projects and become your mentors. Our proximity to London means it’s easy for us to invite people doing the most innovative and exciting work with us.  

It’s a powerful mix of freedom, inspiration and support that prepares you for an incredible career. In fact, in recent years it’s earned our students award wins in all the most coveted competitions including D&AD yellow pencils, Creative Conscience Gold medals and ISTD awards. So, join our community and turn your creativity into a career you love. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be next. 

UCAS points	A Level	BTEC
104-112	BCC-BBC Including formal or informal qualifications in Art or Design	MMM-DMM

IB requirement: 104-112 UCAS points from a minimum of 2 HL subjects at H4 or above, to include Visual Arts at SL or HL (with the remaining points to come from a combination of HL,  SL and Core).

Access course: Diploma with 45 level 3 credits at merit.

All students from non-majority English speaking countries require proof of English language proficiency, equivalent to an overall IELTS score of 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each band.

Our graphic design courses send you out into the world with a cracking portfolio and a crate-load of practical industry skills. It’s no wonder our graduates have a great track record for landing sought-after graphic design jobs in some of the UK’s most high-profile agencies including Superunion, Moving Brands and Taxi Studio. 

They’re snapped up as advertising creatives, branding specialists, motion designers, editorial creatives, graphic designers and art directors. Some even set up their own businesses, come back to us later as design teachers or become studio managers.  

Recent graduates are working at some of the most highly regarded design businesses in the UK and internationally. The course can lead to a wide range of career opportunities in design and illustration; particularly in the fields of branding, advertising, interaction, motion graphics, editorial design and art direction. Our graduates have also gone on to set up their own businesses or persued careers as studio managers, teachers, photographers and printmakers.