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Illustration with Foundation Year

Entry requirements


UCAS Tariff

32-56

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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About this course


Course option

4years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Illustration

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:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£15,000
per year
International
£15,000
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

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


Course location:

Buckinghamshire New University

Department:

School of Art, Design, and Performance

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

94%
Illustration

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Design studies

Teaching and learning

95%
Staff make the subject interesting
98%
Staff are good at explaining things
89%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
88%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

61%
Library resources
76%
IT resources
70%
Course specific equipment and facilities
91%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

85%
UK students
15%
International students
23%
Male students
77%
Female students
73%
2:1 or above
18%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
D
B

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

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.

£19,000
med
Average annual salary
89%
low
Employed or in further education
69%
med
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

36%
Design occupations
12%
Media professionals
9%
Sales, marketing and related associate professionals

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

£17k

£21k

£21k

£24k

£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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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

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Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

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Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

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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