Overview
Explore visual language creatively and solve challenging design briefs using industry-standard technology on our full-time Graphic Design degree at Cambridge School of Art. Choose to study abroad for one semester in the Netherlands, take part in field trips, enter design competitions, and get support to find work placements. Develop your understanding of effective graphic communication to prepare for a career as a professional graphic designer.
- Join a course that scored 91% for „The Teaching On My Course” and „Academic Support” in the National Student Survey 2019
- Solve design briefs set by professional design studios and receive one-to-one critiques from their designers
- Enter prestigious international design competitions including the Penguin Random House Student Design Awards
- Take part in our annual field trip to Amsterdam and create graphic design on-the-move
- Show your work to industry professionals at our end-of-course degree show
- Receive support from an academic team with extensive design industry, research and teaching experience
- Get ongoing guidance to find placements and work experience.
- Study abroad for one semester in the netherlands, and apply for funding to help cover the cost
- Get full training on any of our industry-standard facilities from a team of technical officers
Our BA (Hons) Graphic Design will prepare you to work as an informed and technically skilled designer capable of creative and independent thought, with the confidence and ability to succeed in the design industry.
You’ll explore many graphic disciplines and learn to apply them professionally, developing your visual literacy using graphics, typography and text-image relationships. Our modules on historical, contemporary and future design practice will give you all the theory and contextual understanding you’ll need to solve industry-set design briefs in our studio and workshop-based modules.
You’ll experiment with traditional print-based solutions as well as modern commercial practices including site-specific, interactive, mobile media, app generation, graphical interfaces and multimedia work, to come up with ideas that challenge traditional notions of design and visual communication.
Throughout the course, your studies will be supported by an academic team with extensive design industry, research and teaching experience, including Course Leader Jon Melton (type design, typographic and printing history) and Lecturer Nick Jeeves (graphic design, storytelling with text and image).
You’ll also work closely with a number of graphic design studios, including CPL, The District, and Onespacemedia, who will set your live briefs as well as providing lectures and one-to-one critiques, ending with a final review that can often lead to work placements, internships and long-term professional relationships.
Winning or being nominated for an international student design competition can give you a springboard into a design career, with many offering internships as part of the prize or leading to long-lasting professional relationships. As part of the course, you’ll submit artwork to the Penguin Random House Student Design Awards in your second year, and in your final year, can choose from the prestigious YCN or D&AD briefs.
Our graphic design study visits will allow you to inform your design work, and previous field trips have included a stay in Amsterdam – visiting local museums and galleries, creating graphic design on the move and linking up with staff and students from the graphic design course at Avans Hogeschool in Breda.
At the end of the course, you’ll show your final-year work at our annual Degree Show, attended by many industry professionals, design recruitment agencies, graphic artists, parents and past students. As a Graphic Design student, you could be selected to produce publicity materials for the event, giving your work even greater exposure, or to receive one of our awards from industry for creative, innovative or commercial excellence.
You can see a lot of our student work on this website, but to see more – including works-in-progress, and pictures from our Amsterdam field trip – please visit our graphic design blog.
Careers
We work with employers to make sure you graduate with the knowledge, skills and abilities they need. They help us review what we teach and how we teach it – and they offer hands-on, practical opportunities to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements.
Find out more about our placements and work experience, or the faculty’s employability support.
Our BA (Hons) Graphic Design will prepare you for a career as a graphic designer, as well as for design-related roles in digital graphics, online media, communications and marketing, publishing, and advertising.
Our previous students have gone on to work with design studios or media and communication companies, producing advertising, corporate identities and promotions, packaging and branding, informational design, editorial and book design, web designs and interactive media.
You’ll have many opportunities to generate a strong portfolio of graphic design projects that will help you secure a job in this rewarding, vibrant and growing industry. These include getting involved with regional design agencies and national design networks such as D&AD and YCN, engaging in ‘live’ projects or commercial briefs and building your industry contacts. All of these can lead to freelance projects, work experience and internships, which could result in offers of work before you even graduate.
Or you might decide to take a Masters course after graduation, like our MA Graphic Design & Typography, which can help you to enter the commercial world at a higher level.
Modules & Assessment
Year one, core modules
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Design Process 1
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Introduction to Type Media
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Introduction to Web Design
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Design Process 2
Year one, optional modules
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Contextual Studies
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Graphic Design of the 20th Century
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English for Study 1 & 2
Year two, core modules
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Design Practice 1
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Professional Studies in Design
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Debates and Practices
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Design Practice 2
Year two, optional modules
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New Media Design – Graphic Design for Screen Based Applications
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Time Based Media
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Information Design
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Graphic Design for the Web
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Letterpress and Relief Print
Year three, core modules
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Graphic Futures
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Major Project
Year three, optional modules
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Research Project
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Research Assignment
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Working in the Creative Industries
Assessment
For a full breakdown of module options and credits, please view the module structure.
Our modules allow you to demonstrate your progress by producing coursework to set projects, design tasks and formal briefs. At the end of each semester you’ll submit design work for practice-based modules, and a written document for contextual/theoretical modules. These will then be graded and you’ll receive written feedback.
You’ll also receive ongoing feedback on your design project concepts and develop your learning in taught sessions, one-to-one discussions, project reviews and group critiques.
Where you’ll study
Your department and faculty
At Cambridge School of Art, we combine the traditions of our past with the possibilities afforded by the latest technologies.
Using our expertise and connections in Cambridge and beyond, we nurture creativity through experimentation and risk-taking to empower the makers and creators of the future.
Our academics excel at both practice and theory, making a real impact in their chosen fields, whether they are curating exhibitions, designing book covers or photographing communities in Africa. They are also regularly published in catalogues, books, journals and conference papers, their research classed as being of ‘international standing’, with some elements ‘world-leading’, in the most recent Research Excellence Framework.
