Illustration with Foundation Year
Entry requirements
UCAS Tariff
A typical offer will require a UCAS Tariff score between 32 - 56. Every application is considered on an individual basis. For further details of our international English entry requirements, please visit our General Entry Requirements pages.
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Attend an interview
About this course
This course is offered as a four-year programme, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme.
**Why study at Buckinghamshire New University?**
With a history of delivery expert craft, art and design education for more than 130 years, Buckinghamshire New University is the perfect place to start your creative career.
Led by our dedicated and supportive course team, you will have the freedom to explore all areas of Illustration, whether that’s digital such as vector art or traditional methods such as printmaking.
During your time with us you’ll get direct access to guest lectures and can benefit from live project briefs, master classes, and plenty of networking chances. As well as this, through lectures, seminars and workshops, we equip you with important skills that prepare you for a successful career.
Opportunity modules are a key part of the BNU curriculum. You’ll choose modules in your first year from a broad selection in areas such as sustainability, entrepreneurship, creativity, digital skills, personal growth, civic engagement, health & wellbeing and employment. Opportunity modules are designed to enable you to develop outside the traditional boundaries of your discipline and help you to further stand out from the crowd to future employers.
**What facilities can I use?**
You’ll be encouraged to explore both traditional and current mediums to craft your design solutions, you can do this through our;
- silkscreen equipment
- plotter cutters
- letterpress equipment
- photography studios
- litho equipment
- laser cutting
- 3D printing technology
- Adobe Creative Cloud
You also benefit from our specialist technicians and demonstrators on site, who can support you in the area you want to explore.
**What will I study?**
On this course you are encouraged to solve visual problems with your own unique aesthetic solutions, experiment with image and type and explore appropriate digital technologies.Through practical hands-on, project-based learning you will explore the fundamental core aspects of the subject such as narrative structure, hierarchy, composition and layout, typography, information design, image creation and conceptual thinking skills. Students are encouraged to take risks in their work and learn to challenge established languages and processes through questioning and individual experimentation.
Central to the ethos of the Illustration course is the development of two aims; the first is self-authorship, where your point of view and vision play the pivotal role in identifying and communicating images and messages that are central to your own personal interests, opinions, and core values, and secondly a multi-disciplinary confidence and ability to accomplish communication tasks across a range of media and client bases. These aims reflect the current contemporary vocabulary of a modern illustrator.
Through specialist modules in Editorial Applications and Narrative Illustration students explore a range of media, techniques and theoretical ideas which build an understanding of the role of a professional illustrator. By investigating contexts and audiences through practical projects and live briefs, students develop their personal visual language, consolidate critical and strategic thinking, complex problem-solving and presentation skills, to build an awareness of the wider contextual role of an Illustrator. The final year focuses on personal exploration, application and developing personal voice through a Major Project module. We encourage students to investigate their own interests by writing a brief that challenges students to create innovative and imaginative solutions to problems in areas that are important to them.
Modules
**Foundation year**
Preparing for Success: Knowledge and Creativity
Preparing for Success: Self-development and Responsibility
Inquiry Based Learning
Photography, Design and Visual Communication
**Year one**
**Core Modules**
Critical and Historical Thinking
Design Processes
Design Workshops
Projects
Conceptual Thinking
**Opportunity Modules**
2 x 10 credit year one Opportunity modules
**Year two**
**Core Modules**
Design Research and Theory
Illustration Studies: Image Making
Illustration Studies: Narrative
Professional Studies: Graphic Design and Illustration
Industry Brief
**Year three**
**Core Modules**
Creative and Professional Development
Professional Practice
Personal Projects and Commissions
Dissertation
Final Major Project
Assessment methods
During your time with us you'll study modules that are centred around your own career aspirations and, through guest lectures from industry specialists, seminars and live industry projects,
You’ll work alongside a diverse community of illustrators and graphic designers, each working on their own projects, just as a ‘real-world’ design studio would function. You’ll study in a close-knit tutor group where everyone’s input is recognised and valued. Not only will you make friends for life, you’ll also make important connections that will last through your career, and you’ll form a network, just like you’d find in any design group.
You’ll also work with professional illustrators who will give you feedback and pointers on how you can develop your imagery. Workshops, lectures and seminars with other students in the art and design department help you prepare you for life in an agency or studio environment where you will need good presentation and ideas generation skills as you meet and impress clients. We have many visiting tutors running workshop-based sessions in fields as diverse as stencil print, bookbinding, branding, ideas generation, storytelling, and ethical design.
Individual and small group tutorials led by industry professionals, are not only to support you throughout the degree but more importantly to prepare you the professional world afterwards with an outstanding portfolio and a network of employers.
You’ll also be assessed though; 1:1 or small group tutorials, Portfolio and presentations, written assessments, sketchbooks, group critiques and self-directed study. To build your experience, we also support work placements for the right students with companies that we have long relationships with. Students have worked for publishers, advertising agencies and magazines as well as winning awards such as the V&A Illustration Award.
At the end of your studies, you’ll have the chance to take part in the graduate Art and Design Showcase exhibition at the University.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
Extra funding
Buckinghamshire New University offers a range of bursaries and scholarships. For more information, please visit https://www.bucks.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding/financial-support-bursaries-and-scholarships
The Uni
Buckinghamshire New University
School of Art, Design, and Performance
What students say
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How do students rate their degree experience?
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Design studies
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
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Design studies
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Design studies
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£17k
£21k
£24k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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