Launch
You’ll be introduced to the course, the staff team, and to campus spaces and resources. A lively and varied programme of workshops, activities and exercises will bond them as a group and introduce them to the wider contexts of image-making and illustration. The focus will be on playful, high tempo activities that sow enthusiasm for the coming year.
Fundamentals 1
As you start out on your journey of exploration, you’ll be introduced to the building blocks of illustration. You’ll examine its fundamental objective - to convey information through visual imagery in order to inform, describe, express, embellish, interpret and represent ideas - and look at the broad strategic remit of the discipline: to bring image-based solutions to agreed communication agendas.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity 1
As visual practitioners we have a responsibility for the socio-political make-up of our lives and the lives of others, so you’ll need to think critically about how our worlds are created, and to work together within relationships, communities and collectives. You’ll begin to develop an understanding of perspectives and practices that are unfamiliar; a language to begin to articulate visual culture in relation to socio-political issues; an ability to situate your practices within a global context.
Impact 1
How are images delivered and who sees them? How can we create and deepen engagement using imagery and how can we measure its success? This unit asks you to consider the reach and impact of illustration in its current and speculative forms. You’ll learn about users and audiences to begin to develop an understanding of how illustration and other forms of imagery are transmitted and understood.
Opportunity
This opportunity week will recap on learning achieved in the year to date, reviewing student progress in term 1, and introduce the themes, topics and agendas for the term ahead. This will be achieved via a series of design sprints and live challenges – such as creating and publishing content for a group-curated magazine, setting up a work in progress show or curating a public event.
Fundamentals 2
This unit builds on the skills and approaches undertaken in Fundamentals 1 by exploring the full global reach of illustration, in both its current and potential future form. You’ll consolidate the practical building blocks of image-making and expand on these by looking at experimental practices, reviewing image-based practice, collaborating to produce shared large-scale image projects, and begin to attempt external-facing projects.
Real World 1
As part of preparing for practice in future, this unit introduces you to the position of illustration in contemporary media and wider creative practice. You’ll be introduced to notions of where you fit into the design world, and what external possibilities might look like.
Showtime
This unit asks you to consider the possibilities of external display, as they relate to your own image-making practice and ambitions. You will do this by selecting and participating fully in a series of School-wide events across the year, recording and reflecting on them regularly in a cumulative digital outcome, and final Unit Report and a publicly accessible showcase.