Master of Arts in Curating Contemporary Design (in Partnership with the Design Museum)

at Kingston University London - Kingston School of Art, Knights Park United Kingdom

This course allows you to experiment and explore your creative potential, preparing you for a career in the visual arts or creative industries. Students work with a range of traditional and new technologies, developing their ideas through sculpture, painting, printmaking, installation, film / photography, performance and sound.

Kingston is ranked No.9 in the UK for art (Guardian University Guide league tables 2020).

Key to the course is the professional skills modules, which will help you acquire strategic skills for planning, showing, recording and communicating your work.

You'll get to hear from visiting artists and take part in live external projects. Our industry links include the Tate, Stanley Picker Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Drawing Room and Auto Italia.

You'll be taught by practising artists, writers and curators in purpose built workshops and you'll have the option to go on field trips and study abroad. By the time you graduate you'll have gained real-life experience and skills and completed a portfolio that will help kick-start your career.

This course helps you realise your creative potential in fine art and develops skills to understand contemporary art. You will explore traditional forms of painting and sculpture with new forms such as film and digital printmaking. You will also develop visual analysis skills and historical knowledge by exploring a range of images, texts and objects.

Kingston University is an associate of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), so you'll receive free membership and access to seminars and events. Our links to industry also include the Tate, Stanley Picker Gallery, Drawing Room, Five Years and Traffic.

The course focus is on personal and professional development and you'll have the opportunity to participate in external projects and competitions. You'll also have the chance to exhibit your work at our on-site gallery, and other London locations.

This course recognises the diversity of design practice and prepares you for employment within the design industry.

You'll be given time to develop a personal design approach, learn new skills and apply them to carefully-structured projects with industry partners, that prepare you for your preferred career direction. The course requires you to challenge yourself, your perceptions of design and your role as a designer.

Live client projects are an integrated feature of the course providing valuable industry experience; recently the course has worked with brands including MADE.com and Tefal. We additionally encourage independent external collaboration. You'll work in an enviable learning environment that includes newly-renovated studio spaces and workshops supported by attentive academic and technical staff.

Faculty-wide technical resources available to students include the 3D workshop with ceramics, big build, woodworking, metalworking, blacksmithing and bronze-casting; CNC, Laser, Zund, 3D print, state-of-the-art filming environment and animation suite; industry standard photographic suite with two new digital darkrooms; newly-specified digital media workshops with hardware and software upgraded to a professional level.

Architecture is a profession, and this course is an integral part of a sequence of steps – RIBA parts 1, 2 and 3 - that leads to entry into it. Criteria for entry on to the UK Register of Architects are prescribed by the Architects Registration Board (ARB). The ARB and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have agreed to hold the criteria in common and successful completion of this Honours Degree course gives Part 1 exemption. In addition to this, the RIBA has introduced new Themes and Values for Architectural Education, which includes further focus on climate literacy, health and life safety, ethical practice, and research literacy. The modules in the course work within this framework to provide a coherent balance of intellectual and practical skills, as well as facilitating various avenues to develop students' transferable and digital skills for a wide range of employment.

The course sits in the Department of Landscape and Architecture, one of four Departments in the School of Arts, which is one of three Schools (with the Design School and the School of Creative and Cultural Industries) in the Faculty of Kingston School of Art (KSA). It is located in the compact Knights Park campus, where it is directly adjacent to the range of other creative disciplines within KSA. It has immediate access to excellent and wide-ranging resources for physical making, an opportunity which sits at the heart of the pedagogy in each of the programmes and forms a key component of the BA Architecture programme. The Department's accommodation currently occupies the fourth and fifth floors of the New Extension Building at Knights Park, with the KSA workshops on the ground and first floors of the same building. This is a place in which to converse, to debate, to work and to learn from each other.

Photography is pivotal to fine art, fashion, advertising and editorial photography, as well as digital applications: this course is centred on the making and understanding of photographic production and critical thinking; applied to any subject area.

You'll study both analogue and digital photography; the key focus of the course is for you to develop your creative ideas alongside your professional skills, within a multi-genre approach to the medium. The course takes maximum advantage of Kingston's proximity to the vibrant art, photography and cultural life of London, one of the major photographic art and commercial centres of the world.

There will be opportunities to work with historic manual processes such as cyanotypes and salt prints as well as other 'craft' processes including creating unique one-off photobooks.

This innovative course is designed for qualified healthcare professionals, who are keen to learn more about leadership strategies and management techniques. It consists of taught modules, a work-based learning project and enables you to explore a leadership topic of interest in depth, with the aim to publish. You will learn how to lead and manage healthcare practice and implement research advances to enrich evidence-based practice. The course will help you to drive service improvement projects relevant to your practice, and research healthcare issues within your workplace. The course combines academic teaching with interactive learning and incorporates theories of leadership and change management. You will gain confidence to influence decision makers with your recommendations.

The structure of the course allows you to continue working while studying. The full time option has one classroom based day per week (Wednesdays) and the part time option is once per fortnight (Wednesdays). Many of our students have been promoted as a direct result of studying this course.

Kingston University is ranked No.1 in the UK for design and crafts* in the Guardian University League Tables 2020 (*covers graphic design, interior design, illustration, animation and product and furniture design).

This course lets you create dynamic and thought-provoking interior environments. You'll develop practical skills so you can create imaginative spaces that meet the needs and enrich the experience of modern life. You'll also build your technical knowledge to help you practice professionally.

You'll get to work in purpose-built design studios and have access to a dedicated art and design library.

You'll benefit from links with design studios, cultural institutions, entrepreneurs and community groups. They often set projects for students, awarding placements or prizes to the best.

This course prepares you for a career in art direction in the creative industries. You will develop practical, conceptual and analytical skills in visual communication to create effective advertising and visual identities for organisations and projects.

You will learn to visualise, collaborate, experiment and project manage as you work on real-world projects with other students and industry professionals. You will also develop your knowledge of the creative industries, exploring topics such as design thinking, branding and strategy for creative organisations. You will have creative freedom and be encouraged to undertake non-commercial creative projects.

You'll also have lots of opportunities to work on live projects with creative companies and institutions, as well as being able to work with your classmates in our student-powered creative agency, Studio KT1.

Throughout the course you'll also develop the commercial and organisational skills and understanding needed to work effectively in the Creative and Cultural sector.

If you're considering a career in professional design, this course provides the skills, knowledge and practical experience you'll need. Design work covers domestic and commercial furniture, housewares and ceramics, industrial and technology products. Using our workshops, you'll have a platform for experimentation and discovery. You'll study key themes, such as sustainability, manufacturing and the roles that designers play in industry. The course collaborates and engages with industry at all levels, from live industry briefs to masterclasses and talks by industry professionals.

Your work will be promoted through international design competitions, major graduate shows and external exhibitions. You'll graduate with a professional portfolio of work, giving you a springboard to employment.

The Illustration Animation BA(Hons) - the UK's first degree in Illustration Animation - at Kingston School of Art combines narrative and time-based subjects to give the undergraduate complete creative freedom to engage in visual thinking, expression and communication.

The course is part of the highly-regarded Department of Illustration Animation and Kingston University is ranked No. 1 in the UK for design and crafts* in the Guardian League Tables 2021 (*covers graphic design, interior design, illustration, animation and product and furniture design.)

Illustration has expanded from the traditional printed page to explore many forms of visual media including digital objects and interaction, spaces and environments. Animation as a time-based medium allows exploration from traditional to hybrid domains like film and television, and virtual and augmented reality.

We celebrate the cross-pollination of ideas and skills through the hybrid nature of the course. You'll benefit from dedicated studio spaces and the opportunity for collaboration between illustration and animation.

Built around drawing, the course is carefully structured to develop your individual voice, applying content to image communication to reach an audience.

We encourage learning through making and you will have access to all workshops to test and prototype using any process from etching to ceramics, arc welding to laser cutting, and 3D printing or large-scale textile printing.

The course includes self-initiated and group work assignments and presentations encouraged through self-reflective and critical discourse, individual practice is built and tested by peer group interaction. This breadth ensures students develop the range of skills essential to contemporary practice in all forms of applied image making.

Projects with industry, cultural and social institutions test and shape student understanding in real-world situations. Staff practitioners and alumni networks offer insight and contacts with international creative practice, including studio visits and placements.

The course has an excellent reputation for nurturing graduates who go on to be leading practitioners in illustration and animation, as well as design, direction and a broad range of creative careers.