Master of Arts in Graphic Design

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

Kingston School of Art offers a stimulating environment for the postgraduate study of Illustration. Kingston University has some of the best fabrication and visual process workshops in the UK. This enables the most exciting innovations in ‘thinking through making'.

The Communication Design: Illustration MA course, offered through the highly-regarded Department of Illustration Animation, aims to develop creative professional understanding of Illustration in the context of communication design.

The course is structured to challenge you and your preconceptions about both illustration and design. It places an emphasis on the patterns of research you develop and the visual methods you employ to explore and unravel briefs. You will be expected to demonstrate how you research and develop your ideas. In this context, research is not only a working process it can also be considered an outcome in its own right.

This program asks you to examine: what, how, why and who as key factors in design thinking. This represents a shift from the traditional definition of design and illustration as a problem solving activity to a placing the focus on problem finding. The course encourages the exploration and understanding of the methods and processes at work in contemporary illustration.

This course has been designed to enhance your long-term employment possibilities through an appreciation of the changing global, technological and social context of illustration and design. It includes the option of a one-year UK work placement, enhancing your experience and connections in industry. This type of assessed placement is not available on any other postgraduate courses.

This course prepares you for a career in design marketing in the creative industries. You will develop the practical and analytical skills needed to create marketing materials and design user experiences across different media and digital environments.

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.

The Design Marketing BA (Hons) course also offers opportunities to work on live projects with creative companies and institutions, alongside your classmates in the 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.

Through this course you will acquire real-world experience of working in museums and galleries. Our imaginative, interdisciplinary, international approach will advance your knowledge of contemporary developments in this vibrant and sophisticated area of culture, arts and heritage.

You'll develop transferable skills that are essential across this sector, working with museum and gallery professionals to nationally and internationally recognised museum standards. There are plenty of research opportunities in museums and galleries, which will allow you to develop your own interests and gain valuable research and practice-based skills. You'll also have the option to manage and curate an exhibition and produce research towards a dissertation or work-based creative projects.

This course, one of a suite of digital media courses, enables you to study professional digital media practice in a microstudio environment with a focus on the design skills necessary for the field of games development. Through a student-centred, project-based curriculum, you will work as a games designer to develop your specialist skills while working as part of an interdisciplinary team with students from across the full programme.

• This course has been developed in consultation with our industry panel, and we are an educational partner of Sony Interactive Entertainment through PlayStation First. We are also an active member of TIGA, the games industry's representative body.
• This course has been designed to utilise the best digital media expertise and resources from across the University, and will prepare you for employment in the digital media industry, where teams of specialists work together to develop and author innovative digital media projects.

This course, one of a suite of digital media courses, enables you to study professional digital media practice in a microstudio environment with a focus on the design skills necessary for the field of games development. Through a student-centred, project-based curriculum, you will work as a games designer to develop your specialist skills while working as part of an interdisciplinary team with students from across the full programme.

• This course has been developed in consultation with our industry panel, and we are an educational partner of Sony Interactive Entertainment through PlayStation First. We are also an active member of TIGA, the games industry's representative body.
• This course has been designed to utilise the best digital media expertise and resources from across the University, and will prepare you for employment in the digital media industry, where teams of specialists work together to develop and author innovative digital media projects.

This course will help you to develop the skills and knowledge required to operate as a project manager in the creative industry.

If you are a creative practice graduate who understands making and production processes and, you would like to perfect skills required to lead and design projects, then this is the course for you. Or perhaps you're a mid-career creative practitioner, who wants to develop your commercial and operational skills and understanding but, need to contextualise your learning within the collaborative manner of creative projects? If so, then this course is also for you.

Creative careers are varied, full of change and frequently project-based, so developing project management skills, at postgraduate level, is a huge advantage.

On this course you will also study for a professional Agile PM Practitioner certificate. This certification is accredited by the Agile Project Management Group and is internationally recognised. The inclusion of such a widely recognised certification process in the programme is to further enhance your career and employability prospects.

Kingston School of Art is an internationally regarded art school with a reputation for excellence and innovation in research across disciplines. The newly restructured MFA Fine Art course invites applicants to critically engage with contemporary art and identify what the urgent questions for contemporary practice are. Artists joining the course are asked to reflect on the historical, social, political, technological and intellectual conditions for artistic production. We believe students will then be equipped to understand and question contemporary art and lead rather than follow developments in the field.

Teaching on the course is designed to carefully nurture the core methods, ideas and approaches of its students. The course is studio based with world-class technical facilities and teaching that will consolidate and strengthen students' positions as practicing artists.

Professors in the Department of Fine Art include Turner Prize winner Elizabeth Price and Mike Nelson who represented Britain at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Recent guest lecturers and speakers include Caroline Achaintre, Barby Asanti, Dexter Dalwood, Mark Leckey, Chooc Ly Tan, Amila Pica, Anahita Razmi, Grace Schwindt and Issy Wood.

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.

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.

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.