Course summary

On the BA (Hons) Illustration course, you will be given the freedom to explore personal expression through illustration. With the guidance of our expert teaching faculty, you will be shown how to use illustration to entertain, communicate, influence, inform and educate. Bring your ideas to life using various mediums such as pencils, paint, ink, moving image, animation, digital tools and more. You will explore image making as a dynamic artistic practice, utilising clarity, vision and your own unique style. Working in a friendly and busy environment, this course is designed to nurture you in your creative development. Our small class sizes ensure that you will receive frequent one-to-one guidance from our highly-skilled lecturers, allowing for a more tailored learning experience. By the end of the course, you will be equipped with the tools to help define your future and find an individual voice within the field of illustration. Teaching comprises of studio-based design projects, set and live project briefs, self-initiated work, workshops and lectures. You will also have the opportunity to showcase your work through exhibitions and industry events in both Cambridge and London. WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS COURSE YEAR ONE The first year of this course is designed to expose you to the fundamentals of this exciting creative discipline, whilst exploring the breadth of possibilities available within the world of illustration. Through diverse creative briefs, engaging practical workshops and lectures you will be introduced to the design process through embracing discovery, idea generation, critical enquiry, visual language, storytelling, and technical skills. Projects are designed to allow you to build upon and put into practice the skills learnt in workshops and lectures. You will be given the space to experiment and take risks, as you start to define your individual illustration style. YEAR TWO In the second year of this course, you will be given the freedom to take control of the direction of your visual language as you start to explore the area of industry that most aligns with your future aspirations. You will take part in more challenging live projects and/or collaborations as you examine the subject in greater depth and continue to develop your core skills. As the focus becomes more industry facing, you will be encouraged to continue to question convention, disrupt, risk take and use creative thinking throughout. Project briefs, workshops, lectures and crits will shift towards looking at illustration from a professional and commercial perspective, while still developing your understanding of design process, research methodologies, and storytelling. During this exciting time, you will begin to define the subject from your own perspective and begin to shape skills and interests for the final year ahead. YEAR THREE Your final year is the link between college and your career in the creative arts. During this year, you will undertake more challenging set briefs and self-initiated work as you examine in depth specific topics of your choosing. Guided by tutors and industry specialists, you will work on a final project, focusing on your individual personal direction, by refining the detail and depth of existing projects or working on new initiatives. This final project should present your final illustration identity and will contribute to your final body of work from which to select your own professional portfolio.