MA Communication Design*
MA Communication Design builds upon your knowledge and practice experience of Illustration, Graphic Design and other communication media to explore how current social, critical and technological paradigms are changing how designers create and distribute narrative-driven artefacts or brand-led campaigns.
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<p dir="ltr">The course pushes the boundaries of how we structure and convey stories and subjects through an interdisciplinary community of practice which will challenge you to deepen your own personal style and approach to develop the theoretical and practical skills necessary to explore how this style can be expressed across many media and sectors. As a research-led, studio-based course, you will also learn how to develop new, emerging ideas into a visual methodology that speaks successfully in a crowded contemporary visual culture, whether honing your own brand or developing a visual signature on behalf of clients.<br /></p>
<p>You will have the opportunity to work collaboratively or with external partners on briefs that prioritise co-design, participation and reflective evaluation as a process that will give you the confidence to work generatively, extending your practice through a framework for listening and responding to others whose perspectives are different from your own. As a creative practitioner whose work often transmits the stories, messages, and experiences of others, you will strengthen your ability to use visual language—form, colour, type, motion, light, image, character—in a dialogic process that captures the expressive potential of communication beyond words at the threshold between language and lived experience.</p>
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<p dir="ltr">As a course that aims to expand the potential reach and form of your designs, you will be encouraged to research and identify a compelling social, environmental or business challenge made visible or more accessible through your designs, culminating in a feature project prototype or series of artefacts developed from concept to display for an external client. <br /></p>
<p dir="ltr">Through your study you will have access to an extensive programme of practical workshops, as well as material and digital resources such as our Imprint Lab, Digital Print Bureau, Fab Lab, Multimedia Studios and Equipment Resource Centre for experimenting with how your work takes shape, giving you the opportunity to test how both traditional and emerging technologies might inspire new ways of realising your designs and ideas. These practical experiments are supported by an ongoing programme of visiting lectures by national and international experts, and through opportunities to publish your work through placements with a range of businesses and clients and local, regional and national design competitions. </p>
<p>We are committed to developing ethical, sustainable design practices as outlined in our <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/strategic-plan">Strategic Vision</a> and this ethos is embedded in all MA courses.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>We place you at the crossroad of material traditions and futures</strong>. Design is an expanding area of practice that encompasses both industry standards and an exciting exploration of new design thinking seeking to build more sustainable businesses and ethical creative practices. Our MA Communication Design places you at the forefront of the creative and societal forces that are challenging design norms in order to reimagine production and consumption for a changing world through new modes of practice. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>A pro-active, Interdisciplinary community</strong>. New ideas and design practices do not develop in isolation. You come to university to be challenged, supported and to take risks in a context that will inspire you to innovate and understand design as an active process of inquiry into market demands, new technologies, transforming supply chains and challenges to our environment. The course encourages conceptual exploration and hands-on iteration through multiple disciplines and cultures of making. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Accelerated personal development through guided, practice-led research</strong>. We believe design is a research-led enquiry into human relationships with each other and our planetary ecosystem. This enquiry is pursued through an iterative, material-led examination of the links between human need, human behaviour and human community, leading to new insights and solutions. Your personal learning is accelerated through common units navigated via your individual discipline and professional objectives. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>World-class workshops and facilities</strong>: During your time on the course, you will have access to one of the most diverse and spacious ecosystems of workshops, studios and labs known in a contemporary art and design school. Our FabLab is the first of its kind in the UK and gives you access to state-of-the-art resources for developing a 21st century skillset that will prepare you for leading new design methods and practices, making you adept at navigating design’s complex material and digital interface.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sustainable ethos and specialist knowledge</strong>: Built into our Postgraduate programme is an emphasis on the sustainable, non-extractive and regenerative approaches to working with materials, which not only provides a meaningful link between the past and the future of design, but puts you at the forefront of contemporary design thinking aimed at developing new, more sustainable industries. We provide an opportunity to develop specialist practices that give you the tools and knowledge to contribute to a growing design sector focused on building a circular economy.<br /></p>
<p>Arts University Plymouth graduates are offered a <strong>discount of 15% on Masters programme fees</strong>, regardless of when they studied with us previously. The discount applies if you studied on one of our pre-degree, foundation or undergraduate programmes.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Your portfolio should give us an indication of the work that you have made, organised or been involved in. For our postgraduate arts, craft and design courses, we expect to see examples of work you have created. <br /></p>
<p>The best deadline to submit your MA application by is <strong>1 July</strong>, however please be reassured that we can take late applications until the start of the course if places are still available.</p>
<ul><li><strong>Email: </strong><a href="mailto:admissions@aup.ac.uk">admissions@aup.ac.uk</a></li><li><strong>Tel:</strong> +44 (0)1752 203434</li></ul>
<p>Click the button below to book an informal online chat with Postgraduate Course Leader, <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/people/tom-milnes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Tom Milnes</a>.</p>
