BA (Hons) Graphic Design
Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom
BA
DURATION
3 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
TUITION FEES
GBP 9,535 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* UK students: £9,535 per year | international: £21,400 for the first year
Key Summary
About: BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Kingston University uses studio practice, workshops and industry projects to develop skills in branding, typography, moving image, packaging, editorial and interactive design. You’ll learn research methods, human factors, rapid prototyping, presentation and digital software, and build a portfolio.
Career Outcomes: You’ll gain practical studio experience and Future Skills like problem-solving, digital competency and adaptability. Career opportunities include brand designer, art director, UX designer, motion designer, typographer, packaging or editorial designer, creative entrepreneur and design consultant. Graduates launch independent practices, join agencies or pursue postgraduate study, able to show employers transferable skills for commercial projects.
Prepare for your career in Graphic Design
With the Graphic Design BA (Hons) course from Kingston University, you'll use our studio spaces and facilities to experiment and explore new ways to push the boundaries and open discourse across disciplines.
Throughout the course, you'll be encouraged to explore and develop expertise in current design approaches, techniques, media, and applications. These include branding, editorial, interactive design, packaging and 3D design, advertising, information design, digital moving image, and sustainable and experiential design.
A variety of skills and techniques will support your project work by helping you to realise solution-led ideas. These skills include typography, photography, moving image, printmaking, rapid proto-typing, analysis and research, human factors, presentation, interactive and graphic software.
As part of Kingston School of Art, students on this course benefit from joining a creative community where collaborative working and critical practice are encouraged. Our workshops and studios are open to all disciplines, enabling students and staff to work together, share ideas and explore multi-disciplinary making.
Why choose this course?
On this course, you'll be encouraged to be innovative, invent and inspire change. In addition to learning core design and research skills, you'll work on live projects throughout the course. Recent collaborations have included RSA, D&AD, Creative Review, The Science Museum, Amnesty International, Croydon Council, The British Film Institute and Save the Children.
You'll develop a personal practice through rigorous investigation of a range of focused projects. Design fields include photography, film and animation, typography, interaction, service design, user experience, social design, digital, and book and editorial design.
At the end of the course, you'll be equipped with a combination of creative skills, cognitive processes and methodologies, which will help you to shape the future for business, culture and communities.
We want to ensure anyone with potential and drive has the opportunity to study with us, no matter their background or financial situation. That's why each year, we provide a number of bursaries to help our undergraduate students gain their degree.
- The Kingston bursary
- Bursaries for care leavers
- Bursaries for estranged students
- Bursaries for young adult carers
- Bursaries for Sanctuary Scholars
- Chancerygate Foundation bursary
- Salutem scholarships
- AVSH scholarship
What you will study
The Graphic Design course has an applied approach to the expanding field of graphic design: you'll use our studios and facilities to experiment, exploring new ways to push the boundaries of visual communication.
You'll have plenty of opportunities to participate in live projects and work with the broader design industry: collaboration, teamwork and cross-disciplinary projects are strongly encouraged to reflect professional practice.
The course hosts regular visits to studios, events and conferences both within the UK and further afield.
Modules
Year 1
Year 1 encourages an open-minded and exploratory approach to understanding design. You'll work on individual and team projects, to develop your knowledge of the design process, visual language, typographic principles and core skills.
Core modules
- Concept and Challenge
- Visual Vocabularies
- Communication and Context
- Image & Text - Communication Design History for Graphic Design
Year 2
Year 2 helps you develop creative and interpersonal skills, used to explore imaginative ways to communicate. You'll develop a particular area of graphic design through self-initiated projects, complementing your studio work. You'll learn about the wide social and cultural context in which graphic designers work, and will collaborate with students from other courses on projects. You'll also gain useful career management skills and will have the opportunity to study abroad or undertake a work placement.
Core modules
- Process and Purpose
- Design Interactions and Innovations
- Design Directions
- Critical Issues in Graphic Design: Research and Practice
Optional year
Many of our students take advantage of the ERASMUS scheme to spend a year studying or working in Europe. We have a network of links with prestigious design institutions.
Over 100 students from the course have made use of the ERASMUS Exchange over the last four years. Graphics students in the ERASMUS programme have studied in 17 different institutions.
Over 50 students have made use of ERASMUS funding to support industrial placements. The ERASMUS programme has supported over 40 students from all over Europe studying at Kingston. The study abroad programme with links in Japan, Korea, and the US supports students studying internationally.
Final year
In your final year, you'll work from a range of briefs, and develop your own, to reflect your personal interests and career aspirations. Some students work in a range of areas; others choose to specialise in one. This could be branding, social design, editorial design, film and moving images, photography, advertising and promotion, typography or interactive design. Your interests and self-directed work will inform the written element of the course.
Core modules
- Design Studies
- Positioning and Presenting Your Design Practice
- Dissertation: Research and Reflection
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.
Our Graphic Design graduates are renowned for being autonomous, versatile and entrepreneurial visual communicators. Many graduates develop their own design practices, while others choose to take postgraduate courses before embarking on their careers.
They are employed worldwide in the fields of branding, advertising, digital moving image, typography, interactive design, packaging and 3D design, photography, information design, and sustainable and experiential design.
Our Future Skills programme is embedded within the Graphic Design BA (Hons) curriculum and throughout the whole Kingston experience. Its purpose is to help you to become a future-proof graduate by providing you with the skills most valued by employers, such as problem-solving, digital competency and adaptability.
As you progress through your degree, you'll learn to navigate, explore and apply these graduate skills. You’ll also understand how to demonstrate and articulate to employers how Future Skills give you the edge.