Diploma in Arts - Communication

at Massey University - Wellington Campus New Zealand

In the Music Industry major, you’ll learn how to market and support musicians, developing the skills and networks to become an essential behind-the-scenes music industry professional.

Study artist development and management, and how record labels and distribution networks work, including modern platforms like Spotify and social media. Get experience project-managing live music for concerts, tours and festivals.

Engage critically with the music industry, considering the philosophy, politics and economics of commercial music. Explore new business models that challenge traditional industry conventions.

Work with students from across Massey’s commercial music degree to work on gigs, tours, music videos and online promotion.

The Postgraduate Diploma in Design is an opportunity for you to upskill in creative practice, modern visual communication design technology, and theory.

Commonplace across all major broadcasters and platforms is the audience's desire to consume factual series, bite-size web content and formatted shows from around the world. Factual Production is usually associated with non-fiction broadcast and includes formats such as documentary, chat shows, comedy, quiz and reality shows etc. In addition to broadcast TV, these formats are distributed across a number of different digital platforms both real-time and pre-recorded.

You will go on a journey of discovering compelling real-world true stories and characters lighting the screens of Aotearoa, as well as the international market. This deep dive into factual development, production and post- production reveals the mechanisms of fun and formatted, multi-camera, and studio shows all the way to long-form storytelling around the big issues of the day and character-based features.

We will investigate how the story or format defines the best approach to making the content, alongside explorations to discover your unique, creative voice. 

It’s a flexible program of study with lots of choices. You’ll be introduced to the basics of art and design:

• Creative thinking
• Visual communication
• Specialist skills
• Critical awareness.
• No portfolio is required, just passion.

The Diploma in Visual Arts is made up of eight courses from the first year of our Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Design programs.
You’ll study with art and design degree students in a range of studio and lecture-based courses. These exciting courses cover everything from critical and contextual studies to social media, painting, and digital fabrication.

When you study photography at Massey, you’ll be taught by award-winning photographers and designers. You’ll learn alongside other aspiring photographers in a challenging yet supportive environment.

Join the ranks of Massey photography graduates whose careers span the range from fine art to commercial, photojournalism to fashion photography.

Use state of the art digital suites and printers with technical support and explore alternative and historical wet-based photographic processes.

The Bachelor of Design with Honours (Integrated Design), you’ll select courses from two or more of the other seven majors in the Bachelor of Design with Honours. You’ll push your study beyond traditional design boundaries.

Choose courses to form a unique programme of study, in consultation with the qualification leader. You can choose courses from the following disciplines:

• concept design
• fashion design
• industrial design
• photography
• spatial design
• textile design
• visual communication design (including graphic design, illustration, advertising and branding, interaction design and more).

Join a prestigious group of leading journalists that have studied at Massey University – New Zealand’s longest-running, internationally accredited journalism qualification.

Journalism at Massey is hands-on, practical, and you learn from journalists working both here and overseas.

Produce stories in fields you are passionate and curious about such as in politics, sport, or social issues. Students get to develop skills in written, audio, photographic and video forms by producing work which may be published. You will have the opportunity to experience editing and publishing and global investigative and data journalism among the range of courses offered.

Specialise in Game Development for your Bachelor of Screen Arts with Honours at Massey

Encompassing a broad range of disciplines, including game design, art, audio, coding, and production. Game development is a field that truly embraces interactive screen media.

You will develop skills in critical thinking, logic, design, 3D modelling and texturing, animation, and team-based production while building fun, engaging, and challenging worlds, experiences, and adventures.

You’ll be ideating, designing, and developing games. Using industry-standard software and real time engines and techniques, you'll will work through game design, art and aesthetics and programming to create unique and original experiences for desktop, console and mobile platforms.

More than just the design of buildings, spatial design is all about how people experience spaces. It intersects with the more traditional design fields of architecture, landscape design, interior design, urban design and environmental design.

People inhabit the world in many ways, but we all have spaces where we live, work, play, relax, perform, gather, learn, heal, and celebrate. The design of spaces affects how you feel, how you act, and how you interact with others: Does the layout of your local hospital make you feel reassured or stressed? Do you find you want to linger in some cafes but not in others? Does an office space make it easy and natural for people to get together? Do the views on a walk surprise and delight you because someone has thought carefully about the experience?

Spatial design can improve the standard and quality of our lives, enrich our culture and national identity, and contribute to business success. In spatial design studio courses, you'll learn to design for a host of spaces: private, public, retail, event, work, game, furnishing, experience, display, interface and performance. You learn to use the latest technologies and approaches to design spaces at the required scale, from the big picture (eg urban planning) to the fine detail of construction and materials.

Embed yourself in a rich dialogue about your creative practice in Massey’s transdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts (Design) qualification, for artists and designers. The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) has a strong collective philosophy. By bringing together students from design and fine arts, the MFA fosters intense conversations and exploration.

For designers and artists
Choose whether you want to graduate with an MFA in design, in fine arts or without endorsement if you believe your work cannot be framed in terms of either discipline.
We have had students join the qualification whose undergraduate training is in fashion design, photography, textile design, industrial design, graphic design, fine arts and even music.