Course Overview
The BA (Hons) Graphic Arts & Design course is known for its inclusive and open embrace of all forms of graphic arts and design. The emphasis is firmly set on exploration, experimentation, encouragement and enjoyment. The course has an unusual profile recognising that once discrete disciplines with graphic arts and design have now converged, offering the opportunity to engage with a broad range of activities within a single integrated course. It promotes the cohabitation of ideas and process, encourages a culture of creative independence and supports the emergence of a personal graphic language, producing creative thinkers and problem solvers. The course's media-neutral approach allows students to access many areas of graphic arts and design processes in well equipped workshops, computing and editing suites. The diverse range of practice and process you can engage with are animation, broadcast graphics, illustration, design for print, web design, photography, art direction, advertising, traditional print and digital imaging and editing, typography, letter press and bookwork. The studios are large and open and function as artist's studios, lecture rooms, stages, film theatres, exhibition galleries, dance floors, and personal study space.
Aims And Objectives Levels Of Study
In the spirit of the course philosophy and in accordance with its aims and objectives, the curriculum strategy provides, through an interdisciplinary approach to theory and practice, the opportunity for both multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary activity. In this approach the students' study and practice of graphic arts and design is located within an understanding of its wider technical, social and cultural contexts. The strategy emphasises the opportunity for students to identify, negotiate and undertake their own particular approach to study within the range of activities, practices and associated techniques and processes which define graphic arts and design. Central to the strategy is the Learning Agreement which not only enables students to negotiate and implement their own particular approach to study within the curricular framework, but also enables them to demonstrate for the purposes of assessment the process and outcomes of critical reflection and theoretical and social contextualisation as they are directly pertinent and relevant to their own work. The introduction of the Learning Agreement during level one and its subsequent extension, development, revision and further development in levels two and three, enables students to initiate their approach to study and to reflect upon its development. Each level has its own particular content and aims for achievement which are reflected in its identified specific learning outcomes.
Course Levels
Level One
At the commencement of level one, students are introduced to the course through a specific introductory module. Through lectures, seminars and individual tutorial support students are enabled to locate their study and learning within the principles of the course philosophy and its aims and objectives. Alongside this introduction students are inducted into the range and scope of practice and process areas that are available to them, this includes the proper and safe use of techniques, materials and workshops. In addition they are inducted into the Library and other learning support services. In the second semester students are introduced to the course philosophy and curriculum strategy with particular regard to independent study and learning and to the nature and function of the Learning Agreement. Throughout the level a series of studio projects enables the students to respond to set briefs which provide a common starting point from which students can independently and individually, interpret, research and develop the production of images, objects or artefacts. Simultaneously through the level students are introduced to, and develop, critical and contextual studies. Progressively students acquire abilities, skills and knowledge in the practices and processes of graphic arts and design and the contexts of their application. During semester two the approach is increasingly orientated towards individual approaches and independent creative activity where students are introduced to the nature and function of the Learning Agreement that will form the basis of their studies in levels two and three.
Level Two
At the beginning of level two all students produce, through tutorial support and negotiation, an initial Learning Agreement which defines their individual approach to study through the level modules which are undertaken by the identification and development of self-initiated projects. These modules are supported by a module in integrated critical and contextual studies. This provides the individually negotiated approach within which students interpret, research and develop the production of visual and textual material through the use of appropriate media and processes and engagement with critical evaluation. The integrated critical and contextual study broadens and deepens the students' awareness of, and engagement with, the debates around aspects of the areas of theoretical and contextual study as they are particularly appropriate to the individuals developing processes and their particular approaches and concerns. At the inter-semester point this enables the expansion of the Learning Agreement into a form that allow the student to more clearly define a self-initiated project for semester two that includes research and study of appropriate contextual material. At the conclusion of level two through a process of group and individual tutorial discussion and selfevaluation all students evaluate their progress and achievement with regard to the process and outcomes of their projects. This forms the basis of the revision of their Learning Agreement that will determine the nature and scope of their final self-initiated project to be undertaken in level three. This includes the determination of appropriate areas of critical and contextual research and study to be undertaken as part of the projects and presented within the final Learning Agreement as part of their outcomes.
Level Three
In level three all students undertake self-initiated projects defined and evaluated through the Learning Agreement, for most students these projects span both the units of the level. During the first semester of level three all students through tutorial and seminar discussion are enabled to consider the wide range of possible forms of presentation of the outcomes of the project, the evidence of study which has led to these outcomes and the critical and contextual overview of the outcomes. These include consideration of forms of presentation which are appropriate to the nature and processes of each project and to the professional contexts of graphic arts and design practice and its surrounding activities towards which the student's concerns and aspirations are directed. This enables each student to negotiate, through tutorial discussion, a final revision of the Learning Agreement at the inter-semester point of level three which determines the outcomes of their self-initiated final project and the modes of presentation of those outcomes and their accompanying evidence of study. This then forms the basis of their study and practice for the remainder of the level at the conclusion of which the final outcomes of the project and the evidence of study in critical and contextual reflection in the Learning Agreement are presented for final assessment.
Assessment
Assessment is by a combination of practical work, projects, presentations, exhibitions and written assignments.
Career Opportunities
Graduates pursue work as copywriters, art directors, illustrators, film makers, in design consultancies, advertising and publishing. Students also take up opportunities in postgraduate and further study.
Travel Awards
Living and studying in a different country is an exciting prospect from which students gain a great deal both personally and academically. Students have been successful in winning travel awards to carry out research such as the Hiroshima/Husa programme which has supported ten graphic arts and design students to spend a year in Japan.
Field Trips
We encourage students to engage with the global nature of the subject. Each year students have the opportunity to participate in the many overseas visits that we organise including; New York, Prague, Barcelona, Budapest, Cuba and China. During these trips students are given the opportunity to visit high profile agencies and design studios.
Friends Of The School & Course
The Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design has close links with Leeds Met Gallery & Studio Theatre. The BA (Hons) Graphic Art & Design course has strong relationships with industry, both nationally and internationally and has regular visiting speakers, leading professionals in a variety of graphic arts and design subject areas. We are members of British Design and Art Direction, and participate in DAAD, RSA and YCN awards.
Entry Requirements
Admission to this course is based primarily on an interview and submission of a portfolio of work. It is normally necessary to have completed a Foundation Course, National Diploma, or VCE 'A' Level in Art and Design or a relevant Access course. Those with no qualifications but relevant experience will also be considered.
For more information, including the details of Open days and how to apply, visit the School website. http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cagd/