Leeds Arts University

Our BA (Hons) Animation is a focussed course aimed at students interested in becoming a professional animator who can work across animated film, TV and related industries. You will work alongside other students who are collectively interested in animation production.

On this course students will learn practical and technical skills across a range of traditional and digital animation practice. A grounding in animation and related concepts and theories will help you make an informed choice when you begin to specialise on a specific area of animation practice. This is developed through practical investigation of the animation production cycle including narrative development, worldbuilding, character design, storyboarding, background/layout and animating using a variety of media and techniques.

We encourage collaboration both at course level and across the University, including live briefs and international competitions, helping you to focus on developing your specialist practice within animation.

Work experience and studio visits are supported as part of the professional practice elements of the course. Visiting professionals will give an insight into career development and industry practices.

Previous visiting professionals have included animators, modelmakers, sound designers, scriptwriters, producers and directors from companies such as CBBC, Aardman Animation, Mackinnon and Saunders, Cartoon Network and Golden Wolf. The course encourages students to attend festivals and conferences as opportunities arise. Through these you’ll learn to generate your own networking, collaboration and career opportunities, and how to find work and clients when you graduate.

This transdisciplinary course offers a space for you to explore comic and concept art holistically. We are a practical course where you can discover the theory, practice, and professional context of comic and concept art through a hands-on and industry-relevant approach.

You will have opportunities to apply your skills across a range of specialisms including character, environment, architecture, prop, mech, vehicle and creature design, storyboarding, narrative illustration, webtoons, comics and graphic novels. The course will enable the development of your professional understanding of studio and freelance practice, whilst acquiring specialist skills within a range of creative careers from concept art for the film and game industries, to comic art and self-published comics.

Your learning experience will be professionally focused throughout the course with opportunities for industry contact and embedded professional practice skills. Established industry links will complement the curriculum through visiting professionals, live briefs, and visiting lecturer workshops. This course promote an awareness of the comic and concept art industry practices in an international context. There are opportunities for collaborative projects within the course and across the University. You will also have a variety of opportunities to collaborate with industry, past examples include Thought Bubble – the leading comic art festival in Europe. You will be supported in developing a range of career options upon graduation.

This exciting and creative course nurtures individuality through collaboration. It is designed to produce ‘Ideas That Work’ from creative professionals in advertising.

We’ve developed exceptional links with leading national and international agencies such as McCann, Ogilvy, BJL, Havas Linx, Atomic London, Intermarketing, Golley Slater, Jaywing, CreativeRace, Home, Uniform and TBWA, which will maximise your exposure to industry practice.

Creativity sits at the core of our proposition and we encourage originality and innovative thinking. Our ‘Actively Creative’ philosophy helps you to experience first hand creative challenges which are developed both in-house and through our industry contacts.

Our tutors have considerable industry experience spanning art direction, copywriting and branding. They will support you to understand and analyse advertising, so that you can use what you discover to inform and develop your own work.

You’ll have the opportunity to enter prestigious international competitions which have included D&AD New Blood Awards, YCN, The Drum Chip Shop Awards, and AdVenture in past years. Top agencies have offered coaching, mentoring, work critiques, live briefs, workshops, competition briefs and work experience possibilities. Our students regularly win work experience opportunities with agencies.

The course offers unique opportunities to develop a portfolio of creative and critical writing in a lively and stimulating environment.

Writing is a valuable social currency and opens up doors. The creative possibilities of the written word are enhanced and invigorated by working collaboratively alongside established visual and performing arts courses.

You’ll write in the real world and be encouraged to enter competitions, write for review, write to briefs, and write alongside visual and performative creatives. You will be guided through a range of creative writing landscapes including writing for performance, prose writing, short fiction, art criticism, poetry, script writing, novel writing, new media and zines. You will be encouraged to think locally and globally about the place, purpose and reach of writing, exploring online platforms as well as the potential of the festival, gallery and event space.

You will learn to successfully employ a range of critical thinking skills that will enable you to make sound and valid judgements about the value and role of fiction and non-fiction, becoming a critical reader, thinker and producer of language. You’ll consider the role of writing as a social, cultural, historical and political meaning maker, and explore its contemporary relevance. A positive approach to a writing life is emphasised. You are encouraged to develop cultural awareness and a reflective, self-aware and critically analytical mind-set that will equip you to take on the writing world with a portfolio of transferable skills.

This dynamic course will encourage you to take a creative approach to fashion branding with communication, and develop an individual practice that is underpinned by a social, cultural, political and ethical awareness of this global industry.

You will explore a diverse range of evolving theories and practices that underpin fashion branding, and have opportunities to develop skills in: creative direction and styling, image making, editorial copy, advertising, exhibition design and styling, fashion films, visual merchandising and experiential campaigns.

With new technologies increasingly influencing the industry, you’ll study futurology and investigate theories to apply to augmented and virtual reality, mobile technology user interface design, and digital and social media platform communications that will turn such future-facing ideas into reality.

There will be opportunities to work collaboratively with students on other courses. You will have contact with industry through opportunities such as visiting speakers, live projects, industry briefs and competitions to ensure that you develop professional skills.