Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 up to 2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline *
EARLIEST START DATE
Request earliest startdate
TUITION FEES
GBP 10,900 / per year **
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* there is no application deadline for postgraduate courses
** home full-time: £10,900 | international full-time: £18,700
Introduction
Why choose this course?
Kingston School of Art offers a stimulating environment for the postgraduate study of Illustration. Kingston University has some of the best fabrication and visual process workshops in the UK. This enables the most exciting innovations in 'thinking through making'.
The Illustration MA course, offered through the highly-regarded Department of Illustration Animation, aims to develop a creative professional understanding of illustration in the context of communication design.
The course is structured to challenge you and your preconceptions about both illustration and design. It places an emphasis on the patterns of research you develop and the visual methods you employ to explore and unravel briefs. You will be expected to demonstrate how your research and develop your ideas. In this context, research is not only a working process it can also be considered an outcome in its own right.
This course encourages you to explore and understand the methods and processes at work in contemporary illustration. It challenges preconceptions about illustration and design.
You will be asked to consider what? how? why? and who? This represents a shift from the traditional problem-solving approach to one of problem-finding.
There is a focus on the patterns of research you develop and the visual methods you employ to explore and unravel briefs. You will be expected to demonstrate how your research and develop your ideas, culminating in an independent project.
This course has been designed to enhance your long-term employment possibilities through an appreciation of the changing global, technological and social context of illustration and design. It includes the option of a one-year UK work placement, enhancing your experience and connections in the industry. This type of assessed placement is not available in any other postgraduate courses.
Please note: this course was formerly called Communication Design: Illustration MA.
Reasons to choose Kingston University
- The course is taught by practising illustrators, designers and researchers in design. They will help you develop your understanding of the relationship between illustration, words and communication.
- You will study with students from across the Design School, building your own visual language and ‘tools' in response to briefs in each module.
- Your learning will be supported by live projects, competitions, lectures and workshops.
Gallery
Admissions
Curriculum
What you will study
Project work will challenge you to develop and enhance your existing ways of working. You will explore the importance of research in underpinning your practice and will be encouraged to build your own visual language and ‘tools' in response to set briefs within each module. In the final stage of the course, you will propose and develop your independent major project. You will be taught by experienced academics and specialist tutors from the industry who encourage you to develop your understanding of the relationship between illustration, words, pictures and their means of communication and transmission.
This specialist pathway is part of the School of Design's postgraduate programme. The structure - shared with students from Product & Furniture Design MA and Sustainable Design MA - enables you to explore your individual specialist interests in illustration within an integrative learning environment that provides a comprehensive understanding of the value and role of interdisciplinary methods and ways of working. The influences and impact of thinking from other related design subjects on your own specialist study is an important aspect of the identity and the community of interdisciplinary practice at the master's level in the School of Design.
This structure is designed to help progress and develop your independent learning, encouraging you to construct and explore projects concerned with areas of particular personal interests. The overarching course philosophy, based upon an emphasis on research, methodology and design thinking, allows individual and personal concerns to be explored through focused study in illustration and the creation of images.
The two shared modules of the School of Design's Postgraduate Framework both commence with a symposium, in which high-profile external speakers present their work and contribute to a debate on a topic of relevance to all courses in the Framework.
Year 1
Core modules
- Visual Grammar, Literacy and Intelligence
- Designing Research
- Visual Storytelling: Narrative and Sequence
- Creative Futures
- The Major Project
Optional placement year
Many postgraduate courses at Kingston University allow students to do a 12-month work placement as part of their course. The responsibility for finding the work placement is with the student; we cannot guarantee the work placement, just the opportunity to undertake it. As the work placement is an assessed part of the course, it is covered by a student's Student Route visa.
Core modules
- Professional Placement
Please note
Optional modules only run if there is enough demand. If we have an insufficient number of students interested in an optional module, that module will not be offered for this course.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
After you graduate
This course helps prepare you for roles in the creative industries. Some students follow the traditional path of freelance illustrators; others pursue a wide range of careers, such as:
- art directors
- illustrators
- graphic designers
- web developers
- app developers
- teaching
- work in editorial art departments
- work in book publishing art departments
- fine artists
- animators
- work in theatre and set production
- tattoo artists