The modules listed below are for the academic year 2025/26 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.
Modules may include:
Year one
Typography (Mandatory) - 20 credits
This module introduces you to both the rich history and contemporary applications of typography, developing essential skills in working with type across multiple contexts and platforms. Through a combination of traditional printmaking techniques and digital approaches, you'll explore typography's role in creating meaning, establishing hierarchy, and enhancing visual communication.
Digital Design Fundamentals (Mandatory) - 20 credits
You’ll be introduced to the fundamentals of graphic design software, primarily Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and explores how these tools can be applied to create visually effective digital assets like web banners, social media graphics, and simple interactive elements. You’ll develop an understanding of design principles such as layout, colour theory, typography, and image manipulation, all within the context of digital media.
Branding and Visual Design (Mandatory) - 20 credits
Branding stands as a pivotal skill set, encompassing more than just logo design—it involves creating a visual identity that resonates across various media. You’ll explore how to develop and deploy effective branding strategies that communicate core values and engage audiences through well-designed assets such as logos, brochures, flyers, and packaging solutions.
Graphic Design in Context (Mandatory/ Elective) - 20 credits
A series of lectures and seminars will introduce you to key theories, authors, movements and ideologies pertinent to understanding art and design. Creative practice will be contextualised within its social, political, and economic climate helping you to understand the symbiotic relationship between creativity and culture.
The Creative Professional (Mandatory) - 20 credits
You'll research your chosen career pathway and are introduced to a range of aspirational practitioners, before producing a case study of your professional working practices and career path. You'll produce a personal development plan that reflects the transferable skills you have gained and will take with you into employment in the creative industries.
Commercial Practice (Mandatory) – 20 credits
Working together with peers from other creative disciplines you'll be introduced to the breadth of opportunities for commercial creative practice. You'll be introduced to a range of potential ways to monetise your work, which could vary from creating products to delivering community workshops depending on the nature of your practice.
Year Two
Contemporary Issues (Mandatory) – 20 credits
Delivered as a series of lectures, seminars and discussions covering a range of key topics, this module relates to relevant to issues in contemporary visual art and design. It introduces you to current debates, themes and issues surrounding the visual art and design industry and equips you with a critical perspective on your own practice.
Collaboration (Mandatory) – 20 credits
To reflect the development of a professional network, and in industry, this module requires you to work in collaboration with a practitioner from another creative field to produce a practical project that incorporates different specialisms. You'll be encouraged to critically reflect on your overall learning experience and discuss the merits of working in collaboration.
Marketing and Promotional Design for Events (Mandatory) – 20 credits
In this module you'll explore the intersection of graphic design and marketing and how visual elements can influence consumer behaviours. You’ll develop the necessary marketing skills to effectively communicate and promote a brand or product with opportunities to create a range of promotional materials for events, including digital advertisements, print collateral, and social media content, using industry-standard software.
Live Brief (Mandatory) – 40 credits
Throughout your career as a graphic designer, you'll work with a range of clients to produce work for a range of briefs. This module introduces you to the realities of working in the graphic design industry. It will allow you to engage with live briefs set by external clients and receive feedback and guidance on your work from industry professionals.
Personal Project (Mandatory) – 20 credits
You'll develop your creative interests into a personal project for public display through experimenting and refining of ideas, concepts and techniques. This module will prepare you to undertake extended personal projects in a professional capacity or in further study.
Year Three
Specialist Graphic Design Practice (Mandatory) – 20 credits
You'll explore aesthetics, techniques, and contexts to develop engaging designs in response to a series of scenarios. You’ll be encouraged to assess problems and produce solutions within the context of design research. Throughout this process you'll explore ideas, concepts, professional practices, specialist techniques and innovative approaches to resolve client briefs.
Contextualising Creative Practice (Mandatory) – 30 credits
Throughout any creatives career they are required to write about their work and present their work to an audience in a way that critically engages with the work they produce. In Contextualising Creative practice, you'll complete focused and sustained research into your chosen field to critically underpin your practice. This research will form the basis for your dissertation to contextualise your personal creative practice supported by a personal supervisor.
Collaboration (Mandatory) – 20 credits
This module provides you with the opportunity to work with others outside of your specialist area to produce a multi-disciplinary piece of work. You'll be encouraged to challenge your thinking and explore alternative working methodologies to further your personal practice.
Professional Portfolio (Mandatory) – 10 credits
As a graphic design graduate preparing to enter the creative industries, you must be ready to present your work and successfully communicate your ideas to a specific audience.
This module provides the opportunity for you to consider your practice before developing a professional portfolio that reflects your creative interests, abilities and career aspirations.
Client Brief (Elective) – 40 credits
This module will prepare you for the real working environment and provides the opportunity to initiate, negotiate, resolve and present a body of professional creative work that reflects your personal creative style and identity. You'll experience working with budget constraints, time pressures, and considering ethical responsibilities when undertaking professional work.
This module is optional. Students can select either this module or ‘Major Creative Project.’
Major Creative Project (Elective) – 40 credits
This module provides the opportunity to initiate, negotiate and present a sustained body of self-devised work. The resultant body of work is intended to be displayed as part of a public exhibition. It is expected that the work is informed by extensive research into a concept or idea, and that this is present in the work via an inherent meaning, narrative or communicative value.