Graphic Design (with preparatory semester) - BA (Hons)

More about this course

You’ll discover your own design philosophy as you play with different methods of creation on this course. You’ll be encouraged to explore, question and innovate the relationship of graphic design to the rest of the world, as well as develop a unique voice and vision in your visual communication practice.

Experimentation is strongly encouraged. Collaboration with both your peers and industry partners will provide you with opportunities to learn about and apply professional practices. You’ll have the chance to work with graphic design studios and consultancies, allowing you to experience working as a graphic designer in the real world.

You’ll have regular opportunities to connect with and learn from practitioners and industry partners through our programme of guest lectures, workshops, events and live brief projects.

You’ll graduate with the confidence, vision, skills and professional portfolio to play a key part in the visual communications industry in a range of roles.

On graduation you'll receive the same award and title as students on the standard Graphic Design BA (Hons) course. 

Assessment

You'll be assessed through essays, project work and a portfolio project, which will include a dissertation. There are no examinations on this course.

Entry requirements

In addition to the University's standard entry requirements, you should have:

• a minimum of grades of CC in two A levels (or a minimum of 64 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC National, OCR Diploma or Advanced Diploma)
• English Language GCSE at grade C/4 or above (or equivalent)

We encourage applications from international/EU students with equivalent qualifications. We also accept mature students with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

You will need to attend an interview with your portfolio of creative work. If you live outside of the UK will be required to submit a portfolio of work via email.

Portfolios and interviews

Your portfolio should be selective but have enough work to show the range of your interests and talents. We're interested in seeing how you develop a project from beginning to end, not only finished work.

Graphic designers work in a variety of media; please include the whole range of your creative work. If you can't bring some of your work to the portfolio interview, please take photographs and include them.

Finally, be ready to talk about your work and how you see your future as a graphic designer.

Physical portfolio

If you're coming in person to your interview we strongly suggest bringing a physical portfolio of work.

Things to bring:

• sketchbooks – we love to see your sketchbooks with ideas and notes, even if they are messy
• examples of the development of a project from start to finish and the final outcome
• some work that you are really proud of and want to talk about
• some work that shows you experimenting with different processes

Digital portfolio

If you are submitting an online application, please follow these guidelines.

Things to include:

• scans or photographs demonstrating items from the list above
• storyboarding for motion-based work
• scans of sketchbook pages showing development
• be sure to check the resolution and overall quality of your image to ensure submissions are not pixelated

Accreditation of Prior Learning

Any university-level qualifications or relevant experience you gain prior to starting university could count towards your course at London Met. Find out more about applying for Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL).

English language requirements

To study a degree at London Met, you must be able to demonstrate proficiency in the English language. If you require a Student visa you may need to provide the results of a Secure English Language Test (SELT) such as Academic IELTS. This course requires you to meet our standard requirements.

If you need (or wish) to improve your English before starting your degree, the University offers a Pre-sessional Academic English course to help you build your confidence and reach the level of English you require.

Modular structure

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2023/24 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.

Year 1 modules include:

Critical and Contextual Studies 1 (Visual Communication) (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Tuesday afternoon
• all year (January start) - Wednesday afternoon

The module aims to orient and critically engage you in the history and theory of your discipline, to examine its scope, conventions, and broader social and material context in culture and practice. The overarching purpose of this is to enable a greater ability to think through and develop your studio practice, enriching it with knowledge and ideas gained from study of the contexts in which it is framed. You will be encouraged to explore issues relevant to your own background and identity.

The module will help you to reflect on what you see and experience, and to find connections between different ideas that have shaped your discipline. In particular, the module investigates how ideas about practice in your field might be framed, for example in relation to history, the economy, cultures, society and the environment, through both theory and practice. You will be encouraged to question received ideas and to broaden your thinking and understanding of the global and previously marginalised contexts and histories of your discipline. The current and historic practice, impacts and implications of your discipline in relation to matters of sustainability, equity and accessibility will also be a focus of your studies.

The module will begin to introduce you to a range of academic skills needed to produce a graduate level study (a dissertation) in your final year. It will help you to develop and define your own interests, and to reflect on and take responsibility for the development of your own learning.

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Design Principles (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Monday afternoon
• all year (September start) - Monday morning
• all year (January start) - Monday morning
• all year (January start) - Monday afternoon

This module is intended to enable graphic designers, publishers, illustrators and animators to explore the principles of their subject through intensive introductions to craft and digital based workshops and processes of making, combined with theoretical, historical and contemporary explorations within their subject areas.

Successful design outcomes are reliant on sound design principles. These design principles inform and create opportunities for designers to apply creativity to the conception, development and eventual realisation of effective design solutions in relation to the subject area. Testing, experimentation and iteration are key to making new discoveries and developing as a visual communicator.

This module introduces to a range of contemporary and traditional discipline-related design approaches and processes, some of which will be tested in design exercises. Processes experienced will involve research, documentation and analysis, as well as play, accident and chance.

Design concepts will be tested through the application of workshop and studio methods. Materials, processes and technologies will be discipline-specific, developing creative outcomes relevant to the possibilities and constraints of the context, the needs of the client and users, and industry conventions.

Students will be encouraged to develop a critically informed and personal approach to the process of 'making' and to extensively test new skills and processes learnt. Studios and projects will encourage understanding of practice in the context of a rapidly changing contemporary culture with ever-developing needs and problems; engaging with materials, media and processes to find an individual voice as a visual communicator.

This module seeks to enable students to:

• utilise different methods and techniques, recording and presentation of findings for graphic design, design for publishing, illustration and animation as appropriate discipline-specific skills in studio practice;

• develop strategies for idea generation, problem solving and concept testing, and to design with reflection, rigour, innovation and personality;

• learn and apply key knowledge (for example, material and process selection, historical exemplars) necessary to the exercise of design, including consideration of ethical issues;

• demonstrate that consideration of the effects on users of design decisions is fundamental to the principles and practice of design work;

• build a clear understanding of contemporary practice in the subject area.

Projects will seek to enable a range of learning opportunities such as:

• acquisition of workshop and studio skills for concept generation, design development, both traditional and contemporary, in discipline specific environments and contexts;

• research and analysis through case study of object, context and process;

• discussion of ideas, processes and approaches, developing confidence through shared experience;

• peer and self-assessment opportunities fostering reflection and independent development;

• set tasks and site visits that encourage teamwork, community networking and peer communication;

• face to face and online study groups through the University E-learning environment.

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Graphic Authorship (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Thursday afternoon
• all year (September start) - Thursday morning
• all year (January start) - Thursday

This module introduces the idea of ‘graphic authorship’ as a way of thinking and as an approach to developing a personal practice as a graphic designer, designer for publishing, illustrator or animator. Through investigation and development, from conception to realisation, its purpose is to stimulate critical and creative methods of design in an evolving personal perspective. As good working practice, the module also encourages reflection in relation to critical reception of work. It asks students to consider the negotiable nature, contexts and implications of the personal positions and purposes adopted by creative practitioners.

It surveys key historical and contemporary movements and practitioners known for their singular creative voice, considering what can be learned from the influence of their work in context of their own and later times. The module also looks at other creative factors and influences, whether tied to the professional field or not, in shaping individual practice.

The module seeks to enable students to:

• consider and discuss critical activity and roles as a creative practitioners in a chosen field of graphic design, design for publishing, illustration or animation;

• understand relevant issues, choices and constraints within graphic authorship: can or should designers ‘author’ their own work or simply ‘transmit’ between the client and society;

• appreciate factors that mediate how practice is received and understood through time, place, culture, commerce etc.;

• gain secure knowledge of both precedent and contemporary practice in relation to questions of authorship, beginning to locate themselves within the contemporary disciplinary field accordingly;

• practice strategies for creative influence/ reception, finding their own voices within practice, exploring the question of authorship through studios that further practical competence.

Students will work independently and in groups as is required by the nature of the module’s aims. Seminars and critiques provide ongoing feedback on critical and creative development, permitting reflection on how work is received.

Through case study discussions and indicative visual analysis, the module requires students to reflect on work produced by themselves and their peers, as well as in the context of historical and contemporary figures in the profession. Students will study original examples of relevant work on visits to cultural institutions, studios and other design related situations.

The studio and module introduces a range of media, materials, processes and approaches for the realisation of concepts and ideas through workshops, seminars, critiques and presentations. Studio practice in development of disciplinary techniques encourages technical competence, knowledge of the field and opportunity to develop a critical voice and increasingly distinctive approach.

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Introduction to Visual Communication: Practice (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• autumn semester - Monday afternoon
• autumn semester - Monday morning

This module introduces you to discipline-specific ways of working in the research, design development, realisation and delivery of visual communication projects.

You will respond to briefs, generating and developing ideas through basic research methods for graphic designers and illustrator-animators, followed by conceptual and material design and development processes. You will be expected to respond flexibly to related issues that may be discovered through the research undertaken, producing digital and physical outcomes that will use standard industry conventions and techniques. The project proposals will be evaluated in relation to the briefs set and the context as revealed by the research and development process.

The module is supported by the accompanying module DN3003 Visual Communication: Industry and Context which will deliver the specific techniques and contextual understanding that professional practice requires.

You will be expected to accept and demonstrate responsibility in relation to your ideas, your management of the project process and to reflect on and evaluate your progress. Through this process, you will begin to understand your interests and abilities in the field, so that your progression to Level 4 modules after semester 1 is accompanied by confidence and self-direction.

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Visual Communication: Industry and Context (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• autumn semester - Wednesday afternoon
• autumn semester - Wednesday morning

This module introduces a range of historical, cultural and industry contextual knowledge and practice. It enables you to carry out your creative practice in associated modules with a secure understanding of basic historic and cultural contexts, and visual communication industry practice and expectations.

The module aims to motivate you to be enquiring and to engage critically in the practice and culture of visual communication: you will be encouraged to ask questions and shown how to conduct information gathering and basic research in order to construct your answers. You will begin to acquire discipline-specific skills in designing and visual recording and communication, using industry standard techniques and media. In this way, the module will help you begin to shape their future direction of study as well as providing useful insights into your individual potential and abilities.

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Visual Research and Communication (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Tuesday morning
• all year (January start) - Wednesday morning

This module is intended to enable graphic designers, publishers, illustrators and animators to develop a range of knowledge, skills and approaches in the research, sketching and communication of information and ideas in visual form.

Students will take part in a range of studios, workshops and lectures that introduce a wide range of traditional and contemporary drawing, visual research and communication media, methods and practices to help explore, record, select from, analyse and interpret the environment and the world of images, spaces and artefacts for a range of purposes.

Through the regular practice of a wide range of visual communication methods, whether for the recording and communication of information, the generation of concepts and design or the expression of ideas, students will develop confidence and a key resource to support practice.

Discipline specific projects will explore the recording and expression of line, colour, form, structure, light, space and perspective, texture, detail and context appropriate to the requirements of specific fields in a range of media and formats.

The module seeks to enable students to:

• study and practice a range of techniques and approaches in the research and recording of exhibitions, contemporary and historical practitioners within the field of visual communication, books, magazines and specialist blogs;

• gain increasing fluency in a range of formal techniques in the generation and communication of ideas and information in visual form;

• begin to develop a personal approach and a regular practice of drawing as a form of visual research;

• begin to demonstrate critical interpretation of what is recorded and produced through visual research and communication practice through reflection.

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Year 2 modules include:

Critical and Contextual Studies 2 (Visual Communication) (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Thursday afternoon

Critical and Contextual Studies 2 continues to orient and critically engage you in the history and theory of your discipline, its extent and conventions, and its broader social and material context in culture and contemporary practice. It builds on studies undertaken in Level 4 and prepares you as independent thinkers to be capable of selecting an appropriate topic and producing a sustained piece of independent study in the form of a dissertation in Level 6.

The module continues the process of constructing and questioning knowledge about your discipline, its history, contexts, and professional and ethical dimensions. It introduces and rehearses the analytical and discursive skills you need to become critically aware of the authorities, objects and practices in your field and able to express and debate the issues attaching to them. You will consider the roles and responsibilities of professionals in your field and examine the ethical questions relevant to the discipline, becoming conversant with current debates in the subject. You will consider the priorities and points of view of the industry, the client, the designer, the consumer or user, the critic and wider society.

You are encouraged to think critically and creatively and to take responsibility for the development of your own learning. The module recognises that you are an active contributor to the process of learning: what you as a student bring to the construction and evaluation of knowledge matters – and how effectively you construct and evaluate that knowledge depends on how well you understand the field of your discipline as outlined above.

Critical and Contextual Studies for second year students is structured in order to foster confidence, through applying analytical skills to a growing body of knowledge and expressing this through debate, discussion and public presentation. Dialogue and exchange between students and tutors takes place in informal in-class settings and ensures that student experience and cultural and social capital is expressed and valued.Critical and Contextual Studies 2 continues to orient and critically engage you in the history and theory of your discipline, its extent and conventions, and its broader social and material context in culture and contemporary practice. It builds on studies undertaken in Level 4 and prepares you as independent thinkers to be capable of selecting an appropriate topic and producing a sustained piece of independent study in the form of a dissertation in Level 6.

The module continues the process of constructing and questioning knowledge about your discipline, its history, contexts, and professional and ethical dimensions. It introduces and rehearses the analytical and discursive skills you need to become critically aware of the authorities, objects and practices in your field and able to express and debate the issues attaching to them. You will consider the roles and responsibilities of professionals in your field and examine the ethical questions relevant to the discipline, becoming conversant with current debates in the subject. You will consider the priorities and points of view of the industry, the client, the designer, the consumer or user, the critic and wider society.

You are encouraged to think critically and creatively and to take responsibility for the development of your own learning. The module recognises that you are an active contributor to the process of learning: what you as a student bring to the construction and evaluation of knowledge matters – and how effectively you construct and evaluate that knowledge depends on how well you understand the field of your discipline as outlined above.

Critical and Contextual Studies for second year students is structured in order to foster confidence, through applying analytical skills to a growing body of knowledge and expressing this through debate, discussion and public presentation. Dialogue and exchange between students and tutors takes place in informal in-class settings and ensures that student experience and cultural and social capital is expressed and valued.

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Exploring Design Practice (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Friday morning
• all year (September start) - Tuesday afternoon
• all year (September start) - Tuesday morning

This module exposes students to specialist graphic practices in design for print, screen, branding, interaction, animation, illustration or photography. The module asks students to conceptualise, plan and produce design outcomes that challenge and innovates the areas of graphic design, illustration, animation and publishing.

Design practice for print, screen and environments have a vital historical importance in global culture where they have been adopted; and due to the constantly changing nature of contemporary communication, they retain their validity as ways of imparting and exchanging information. Here, students are encouraged to consider the particular role and possibilities offered by the forms of design methods explored in the module.

Using accumulative knowledge of contemporary graphic design, design for publishing, illustration and animation, students will adopt a questioning approach, to gain in-depth understanding of the commercial and technological context of current design practice, with an emphasis on how to contribute to and advance the field. Encouraging cross-disciplinary practice with other disciplines such as fine art, printmaking, three-dimensional design and architecture, students will experiment with various modes of graphic design and illustration – technical, editorial, experimental, narrative and entrepreneurial.
Photography and lens-based imagery have been crucial in the history of illustration, animation, publishing and graphic design. Relationships between image, text, sound and space are critical to understanding developments within design practice. Within the project, students will employ photography to create and communicate ideas and concepts, in the context of visual communication.

Under guidance within design studios, students will choose from, or devise a project or range of projects, working with established designers and industry professionals. The module will facilitate the realisation of concepts generated in other modules.

This module seeks to enable students to:

• understand the commercial environment, context and potential purposes and applications of design practice;

• consider issues such as the use and reception of language, methods of structuring information, both text/type and image, appropriate tone of voice, hierarchy, sequence and materials and processes, across book, exhibition design, editorial and information design, recognising and debating the theoretical and ethical context;

• conceptualise, plan and produce design outcomes that exploit the whole breadth of graphic communications for a defined purpose, exploring and extending practice, creatively and technically;

• explore, appreciate and apply a range of skills demonstrating commercial awareness and professional techniques for presentation to an identified audience.

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Narrative (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Friday morning
• all year (September start) - Tuesday morning
• all year (September start) - Tuesday afternoon

This module encourages graphic designers, publishers, illustrators and animators to gain experience and understanding of ‘narrative’ as a key element within creative practice. The principal purpose of this module is to explore understanding of how found or individually generated narratives can be utilised imaginatively within design practice. Narrative within design practice regularly employs fictional devices as stimuli. Thoughtful reflection on storytelling conventions will enable you to enrich and extend the range of creative expression.

Within this module, students will be encouraged to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct narrative to inform or subvert the reading of design practice for public dissemination. Intelligent, creative selection of media and process will enable students to enrich and extend the range of practice, developing confidence in communicating through narrative studio themes.

This module seeks to enable students to:

• explore narrative themes, patterns and types within design practice;

• deepen confidence and evolve a distinctive approach through research and re-interpretation of narrative within design practice;

• further relevant practical skills in order to employ expressive themes within creative practice;

• develop critical understanding of semiotic reading in relation to visual and material design practice.

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Work Ready 1 (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Thursday morning

This module is intended to enable graphic designers, publishers, illustrators and animators to gain experience and understanding of working practices within their respective creative industries. Work related learning projects, work opportunities and competition opportunities that reflect real-world situations, enable the consolidation of both disciplinary and creative skills, develop professional confidence and navigate individual-entrepreneurialism and collaborative approaches to working.

Projects will provide the opportunity to explore in-depth professional ways of working, encouraging students to foster creative imagination and critical judgement, and to develop individual and team-working skills to real-world problems and opportunities.

The module is driven by creative workplace goals, objectives and constraints in order to develop, test and extend knowledge and understanding of professional practice and employability. Particular emphasis is placed upon the completion of agreed practice-based outcomes to a professional standard within agreed timescales, promoting confidence in communication skills, including visual and verbal presentation methods. Professional ethics, social enterprise and entrepreneurial strategies will be explored, debated, and applied to produce creative solutions.

Within the module, students will gather work-related experience through live or simulated projects. Students will gather transferable skills, desirable and advantageous for employment. They will foster students’ ability to develop and present creative ideas to a professional client relevant (or adjacent) to their overall practice or employment intentions.

This module seeks to enable students to:

• develop social and professional skills and confidence for collaboration, negotiation and decision making in individual and team working contexts;

• acquire knowledge of professional ways of working and standards required within graphic design, publishing, illustration and animation field of practice, including recognition of relevant ethical concerns;

• embed in their practice professional methods of project management, recording, communication and analogue and digital presentation;

• employ creativity and enterprise in problem solving through effective industry techniques for analysis and evaluation, setting goals and targets in relation to the opportunities and constraints of the brief.

The module focuses on individual and/or team self-directed study in response to illustration and animation, publishing and graphic design studio briefs and competitions with tutor and industry professional guidance. Teaching and learning will normally include discipline-specific lectures, workshops and/or presentations on industry practice, briefings, company/industry visits, and critiques enabling reflection and analysis of work in progress and feedback. Students will have access to regular tutor feedback within sessions and will be encouraged to use blended learning resources to maintain and share progress. Ongoing support, monitoring and guidance in studio and workshop sessions will be available during projects.

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Year 3 modules include:

Critical and Contextual Studies 3: Dissertation (Visual Communication) (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Wednesday afternoon
• all year (September start) - Wednesday morning

Critical and Contextual Studies (CCS) in Level 6 offers you an opportunity to understand and explore the historical, social, cultural and economic factors which influence, and provide a context for, the development of architecture, art and design practice. Building on critical and academic skills gained during two years of previous study, the module encourages you to develop an awareness of issues around which there is some debate, uncertainty or contest. Based on this awareness, you will develop a set of research questions which constitute the topic of your study. This topic can be theoretical, historical, or technical and you may, with guidance, decide to engage with an area of scholarly interest outside the territory of your degree course.

You will develop your topic and respond to your research questions in the form of an extended critical study or Dissertation (6,000–7,000 words). Through this study you demonstrate that you can thoroughly research a topic, use appropriate methods of investigation, and work in a methodical and organised way to develop a coherent argument or line of thought. Teaching and Learning on the module is designed to support you in this process through a combination of tutorials and one to one supervision; as well as a series of formative and summative assessments which prepare you for the final submission.

The final form and presentation of your Dissertation can reflect a broad range of approaches to research and writing. It may include visual materials or other non-written forms of presentation as long they support your enquiry and comprise an integral part of the whole.

The final form and presentation of your Dissertation can reflect a broad range of approaches to research and writing. It may include visual materials or other non-written forms of presentation as long they support your enquiry and comprise an integral part of the whole. By prior approval at the start of the module, your research can be part practice-based, and include primary research and fieldwork.

By virtue of the sustained, independent nature of the learning and substantial final output, the dissertation is also intended to prepare you for possible postgraduate study.

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Final Project Realisation: Graphic Design (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Friday morning
• all year (September start) - Tuesday afternoon
• all year (September start) - Tuesday morning

This final project module enables graphic design students to prepare for independent practice in the workplace or to move onto higher studies. In this module, students will utilise skills and ideas conceived and developed in the parallel 'Project Design and Development' module, fully realising a self-directed final project brief in appropriate form by the end of the module.

Students will exercise and display their conceptual and creative abilities through selecting, analysing and applying knowledge, skills and understanding. They will negotiate and complete a fully researched project in order to properly understand their strengths, interests and position in the field of graphic design and their potential for future professional development.

Students will show that they understand the complex and changing nature of problems in the graphic design industry and can devise and apply realistic strategies for constructing, applying and managing a process designed to offer innovative solutions.

A professional standard of realisation, contextualisation and presentation will be expected, providing the elements for a professional portfolio of practice with which to enter the field of employment or self-employment or further studies.

This module seeks to enable students to:

• devise a fully holistic process to realise the outcomes of a graphic design research and development project;

• achieve outcomes of a professional standard of realisation and presentation;

• contextualise and present outcomes to a professional standard, showing that they have understood and managed complex and ambitious tasks;

• work independently, self-reflectively and with concern for the ethical issues and principles attached to the project showing understanding of their particular strengths, interests and position in the field, and their potential for further development.

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Project Design and Development (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Friday morning
• all year (September start) - Tuesday afternoon
• all year (September start) - Tuesday morning

Together with their final project realisation module, this module is intended to prepare graphic design, publishing and illustration and animation students for independent practice, entry into the professional workplace, or for higher studies.

Through independent and studio-based knowledge of visual communication fundamentals, skills, elements, processes and principles, students will facilitate, design and develop a series of self-directed studio projects. This will naturally require in-depth research, a well-constructed visual communication process, and the exercise of practical and thinking skills, resulting in a significant body of creative work for public and work related exhibition.

A negotiated and approved proposal will confirm the individual project. Using course and studio narratives, creative exploration and experimentation, students will develop research, concept development, material investigation, digital and analogue proposals, modelling or prototyping and visualisation. The final outcome will be produced in final project realisation.

The module will ensure that students critique and reflect upon their own work and position in the creative sector. The module emphasises self-direction and personal focus whilst acknowledging external and professional trends, expectations and constraints.

This module seeks to enable students to;

select or devise and conduct a comprehensive visual communication project resulting in a significant body of work displaying the synthesis of conceptual and technical skills within the final presentation;

demonstrate ability to determine the relevant and required research and construct a research and development process suitable for successful completion of the project;

affirm their creative identity as they enter the professional field and indicate a sense of future direction and position including in the context of principles and ethics;

evidence self-management of the project in respect of planning, monitoring, recording and evaluation.

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Work Ready 2 (core, 30 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Friday afternoon

Graphic design, illustration, publishing and animation are complex fields, encompassing a range of ways of working and patterns of professional engagement. Succeeding within these professional practices requires specific skills in pitching, presentation methods, management, innovation and communication. This module helps you to develop your experience of the professional workplace and the legal and ethical frameworks surrounding them through participation in live competition or exhibition and/ or work placement.

The module looks at formal models for concept innovation, creative thinking and entrepreneurial skills, alongside developing individual responsibility as a practitioner and critical self-reflection. Through professional submission, pitching and presentation to potential employers, participation in real-world competition briefs or exhibition opportunities, students will develop and test their design approaches and professional strategies for differentiation and self-promotion within a highly competitive field.

The module sets out to prepare students for entry to the workplace or higher study through experience of professional portfolio development and related group and self-promotional activities. It helps students to assess not only their position within the design industry but also to define their individual creative strengths, presenting their work to a high professional standard. Through practice, students will establish a sound process for research, design development and production. A series of lectures, workshops, seminars and assignments, will prompt the investigation, analysis and practice of the forms, properties and qualities of a wide range of professional practice fundamentals, for example, digital portfolios, branding, event design and management, costing, copyright laws and offline and online content creation.

Within the module, students will experience work-related learning through live exhibition, competition and/or simulated consultancy and/ or work placement. They will refine a range of transferable skills in communication, management, research and analysis and will be encouraged to reflect and report on the work-relevant skills developed throughout. These skills are desirable and advantageous for all graduates and include (for example): action planning, contribution to professional meetings, entrepreneurship, acting as a consultant, goal setting, negotiating, networking, project management, self-appraisal, team working. Activities undertaken within this module will help to prepare for the launch of an individual design practice during the final degree show and subsequent career.

The module seeks to enable students to:

• research, analyse, and adapt their practice for sector-specific professional conventions in relation to real-world employment, exhibition or competitive situations;

• develop professional entrepreneurial processes for the generation, development, testing and pitching of concepts in response to specified clients and audiences;

• plan and manage self-promotion activities and exhibition, client or employer project pitching from inception to delivery, within commercial timeframes and develop strategies to maximise chances of success;

• employ professional standards in the manipulation of appropriate media for the communication and presentation of your design identity and specific concepts;

• review competitor practices in relation to employment preparation or freelance self-promotion and build enterprise strategies for consultancy practice.

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What our students say

"Intellectually stimulating. I have learned new techniques and my understanding of the subject has broadened. I have made some really good connections."

"Tutors are the highlight of the University. You can see the passion they have for art and design, as well as having the passion to teach us."

"The new studio idea is really successful and my studio leader is absolutely amazing."

"Excellent tutors and lecturers. A good range of facilities available, all of which are well supervised by helpful technicians and tutors."

"My printmaking teachers were awesome, they helped me gain enough confidence with my work."

"I have definitely learnt a lot over my three years, gained confidence in my work and met some brilliant people."

Where this course can take you

The skills you learn on this course will open up many different career paths to you. You could find employment in illustration, animation, printmaking, visual effects, art advertising or production design.

Important information about this course

We're committed to continuously improving our degree courses to ensure our students receive the best possible learning experience. Many of the courses in our School of Art, Architecture and Design are currently under review for 2023-24 entry. We encourage you to apply as outlined in the how to apply section of this page and if there are any changes to your course we will contact you. All universities review their courses regularly and this year we are strengthening our art, architecture and design courses to better reflect the needs of employers and ensure you're well-equipped for your future career.

Additional costs

Please note, in addition to the tuition fee there may be additional costs for things like equipment, materials, printing, textbooks, trips or professional body fees.

Additionally, there may be other activities that are not formally part of your course and not required to complete your course, but which you may find helpful (for example, optional field trips). The costs of these are additional to your tuition fee and the fees set out above and will be notified when the activity is being arranged.

Stay up to date

Follow our School of Art, Architecture and Design on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date with everything that's happening in our creative community.

For an insight into life in the Visual Communication cluster, you can also follow the latest on our @vc_ldnmetarts Instagram account.

Discover Uni – key statistics about this course

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When to apply

The University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) accepts applications for full-time courses starting in September from one year before the start of the course. Our UCAS institution code is L68.

If you will be applying direct to the University you are advised to apply as early as possible as we will only be able to consider your application if there are places available on the course.