21Jun
UndergraduateCourse summary
Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. We are the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience. The university was recently voted 2nd in the UK for Facilities in the annual Whatuni Student Choice Awards, 3rd in the UK for Student Support, and 4th in the UK for Lecturers & Teaching Quality. Arts University Plymouth was crowned the 2024 Winner in South West England for the categories of University of the Year, Facilities, Student Support, and Learning & Teaching Quality. Our MA Visual Communication programme encourages the development of an individual and distinctive contemporary graphics practice through considered engagement with current contexts, audiences and outputs. This programme brings together design-led and research-driven approaches to take a critically informed and widely experimental approach to the production, form and circulation of the ‘message’. The programme is ideas-driven, and devised to assist you in developing your unique approach within the broad field of contemporary communication-led practices, including graphic design, advertising, packaging design, branding, and more. You will engage in design thinking and research centred projects, developing contextual thinking and visual literacies through iterative design, working with complexity and ambiguity, enabling you to assimilate diverse ideas and dynamic outcomes. We’ll support you in articulating your ideas, developing your working methods and creating independent work, through individual tutorials, lectures, subject-specific seminars, studio and gallery visits and group critiques with access to our rich workshop areas and technical resources across the university.
Modules
The comprehensive Masters structure, which is shared across our specialist programmes, enables our postgraduate students to focus on creative strategies and processes through three sequential modules which support you in investigating, testing and developing your ideas. The core tuition focuses on training, research methodology, critical thinking, design, practice-led research methods and professional and conceptual frameworks, with an opportunity for negotiated study under specialist supervision for MFA and MA by Research students. All of our programmes have access to outstanding workshop facilities in the university. By combining modules with specialist assignments and personal project proposals, you will be able to achieve depth and specialisation within your subject area, while at the same time becoming equipped with robust approaches, methodologies and techniques that can be applied across the commercial, social and public sectors. All students are asked to submit an initial statement on application to the course. This sets out your ideas for the MA or MFA programme you have selected. Creative practice is about change and development, and this statement will form the starting point for a dialogue about your work.
Assessment method
The final module of the programme may be submitted as a dissertation or as practice, depending on which pathway best suits your concerns as a creative practitioner.
Entry requirements
MA applicants are normally expected to have an undergraduate degree at 2:2 or above. However, the strength of your creative practice and other forms of experience will be taken into account at the interview stage and we encourage you to start a conversation with us.
English language requirements
| Test | Grade | Additional details |
|---|---|---|
| Trinity ISE | Merit | Integrated Skills in English II (Level B2), minimum grade required: Reading: Merit, Listening: Merit Certificate valid for two years |
| IELTS (Academic) | 6 | IELTS (Level B2), minimum grade required: IELTS overall score of 6.5, minimum of score Listening: 6.0, Speaking: 6.0, Reading: 6.0, Writing: 6.0 Certificate valid for two years |
| PTE Academic | 59 | PTE Academic (Level B2), minimum grade required: Listening: 59, Reading: 59, Writing: 59, Speaking: 59 Certificate valid for two years |
Click here to find out the most up-to-date information on our English Language requirements
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
| Republic of Ireland | £5150 | Year 1 |
| EU | £9200 | Year 1 |
| Channel Islands | £5150 | Year 1 |
| England | £5150 | Year 1 |
| Northern Ireland | £5150 | Year 1 |
| Scotland | £5150 | Year 1 |
| Wales | £5150 | Year 1 |
| International | £9200 | Year 1 |
Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .
Additional fee information
No additional fees or cost information has been supplied for this course, please contact the provider directly.
Provider information
Arts University Plymouth
Tavistock Place
Plymouth
PL4 8AT