Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English and American Literature with Placement Year

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

With a toolkit that mixes the creative and the technical, an animator does all this and more. Whether working in the artistic or commercial worlds, animators produce the moving images for anything from film and broadcast media to digital platforms and video games. Our BA (Hons) Animation course brings together key aspects of contemporary professional animation practice to help you prepare for an exciting range of careers, from animation to concept art to games development.

As an animation student you will be part the School of Digital Arts, a vibrant community that offers the chance to explore every aspect of what it means to work in the digital arts. You will work across a range of creative practices – just as the professionals do – to collaborate on cross-disciplinary group projects, alongside photographers, sound engineers, filmmakers, games and media professionals. And, just as we mirror industry practices, we also work with industry-standard tools – learning within a brand new, purpose-built building that comes equipped with the latest emerging technologies for animation, filmmaking and more.

Manchester offers an ideal setting as an animation student. A global, creative city, it has a long-established history of animation and is home to Cosgrove Hall Films – creators of numerous children’s animations and whose company founders were both students of Manchester Metropolitan University. Today the city has a thriving industry, with a significant TV, film and digital production presence at MediaCityUK, which is home to the BBC, ITV and a host of independent media companies, all of which offer you some inspiring opportunities.

With a course that’s built on our local heritage and that makes the most of our industry links, you’ll have the chance to develop the skills, build the network and gain the experience that rewarding careers are made from.

The MSc Luxury Fashion Management course is designed to advance practical and theoretical skills including creativity, innovation and management.

You will learn how exclusive luxury organisations succeed through exceptional business acumen, creativity and innovation. Luxury businesses are central to the industry and a barometer to international trends, embracing sustainability, diversity and change. Luxury fashion is embedded in historical and cultural contexts but characterised by contemporary issues including evolving customer demands, digital technology, style and image. The program develops awareness of the cultural codes of the luxury fashion industry through deeply understanding a brands DNA, heritage, craftsmanship, services and clientele.

Teaching from educators and industry partners through workshops, events, collaborations and company visits will provide a holistic overview of this innovative and exciting sector. As a student of the MSc Luxury Fashion Management you will enhance existing knowledge and develop creative, managerial and professional skills to achieve the highest recognised postgraduate award. Career development and support are an integral part of the course, preparing you for a career in fashion or other luxury sectors.

With a strong emphasis on employability and social responsibility, this course will equip graduates with the key skills required to help evolve the fashion system to become more ethically conscious, socially progressive and environmentally sustainable.

With a strong focus on employability and social responsibility, MSc International Fashion Business Management is aimed at applicants from a variety of backgrounds who want to gain a professional understanding of the fashion industry.  

The program structure allows fashion creatives to continue their creative practice whilst gaining a sound knowledge of international fashion business, as well as applicants who would like to establish their own fashion brand or business in this competitive globalised industry. This course will equip graduates with the key skills required to help evolve the fashion industry to become more ethically conscious, socially progressive and environmentally sustainable.

Students will gain experience in both the strategic and creative aspects of fashion, business and management. They will develop knowledge of business, environmental, social and cultural contexts, underpinning the strategic and creative process with theoretical knowledge in an ever-changing global market.

The character and culture of Manchester is embedded in this course. As an international city that attracts global brands and has a flourishing independent fashion economy, students can avail of a range of different learning experiences. Through a range of live project briefs and opportunities for collaboration, students are encouraged to challenge the status quo and produce a creative industry portfolio that demonstrates their distinct skills and experience to prospective employers.

Games design offers a route into a form of entertainment that’s not only one of the world’s most popular but is also constantly evolving, innovating and redefining its own boundaries. In short, the games industry is an exciting place to be and our BSc (Hons) Games Design course can offer your route into it.

Throughout the course, you’ll find an activity-led approach focused on the practical processes of making games. So, with our support you’ll build up a strong portfolio of games and game-like artefacts. As you progress, you’ll have the chance to pursue the specialist areas of the discipline that interest you most, and with cutting-edge assessments like our ‘Game a Week’, you’ll also build up your abilities as a games designer. Then, in your final year, you’ll not only work solo on your own game, but also work on a large-scale game through a series of smaller projects within a simulated game studio.

The School of Digital Arts offers the perfect setting for that kind of collaboration. That’s because our innovative curriculum paves the way for the same cross-disciplinary teamwork you’ll find in the professional digital sector – by working with students in sound design, animation and media production as well as students from our Department of Computing and Mathematics. The result is an environment that fosters creativity and helps you build a varied, well-rounded skillset. And, because SODA is purpose built with industry-standard facilities, you’ll leave us equipped with industry-standard technical skills too.

As a Games Design student, you’ll find Manchester offers both the perfect backdrop for your studies and an ideal launching pad for your professional ambitions. It’s not only home to a rich heritage of games publishing, but today has the largest media and creative sector outside London. On our doorstep, you’ll find a globally recognised web and UX sector, as well as renowned CG, visual effects and VR/AR agencies and at MediaCityUK in Salford, the BBC’s digital and games teams. All in all, it provides a range of opportunities for a graduate ready to make a statement in the world of games development.

The Textiles in Practice course enables you to experience textiles as a flexible and diverse subject. You will be taught from within core pathways offering the opportunity to specialise or combine the disciplines of print, weave, knit, embroidery and mixed media. We promote and encourage the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary practice where processes and techniques combine and complement one another. Specialist workshop provision offers hands-on traditional machinery and the latest digital technologies, supported by expert academic and technical staff who are actively engaged in research and are professional designers and artists. Emphasis is placed on the development of personal interests and ambitions that reflect the breadth, versatility and potential of textiles within contemporary art and design contexts.

The impact humans make on the environment has never been so significant, so pressing or so high profile. Governments, researchers and private organisations are still grappling with the potential solutions for global challenges. Our MSc Environmental Practice provides an answer. It’s your chance to look beyond the headlines and explore the scientific, political and practical realities of protecting the environment.

This course is suited to those looking to enhance their environmental science or management backgrounds, and also those from other backgrounds looking to move into the sector and complement their skills with environmental science and with environmental management aspects.

As such, you’ll cover a diverse range of units throughout the course. On one hand, you’ll develop skills in assessing, monitoring and modelling pollution in the air, water and land, as well as measuring ecosystem degradation. On the other, you’ll learn to apply environmental management tools, impact assessment procedures and carbon management methods.

Finally, you’ll also learn about sustainable development principles and environmental policies – and how to evaluate their implementation. This mix of policy, practice and science will take you from the classroom to the field to the lab. While you’ll develop desk-based assessment approaches, explore key concepts and analyse evidence in lectures and seminars, understanding the environment means getting out into the environment.

So, as well as various opportunities for field trips, you’ll get out into the field for a residential course where you’ll conduct an interdisciplinary environmental assessment. To help you develop your practical skills, you’ll learn in an altogether more cutting-edge environment – with high-spec teaching and research labs equipped with state-of-art analytical and computing equipment.

The MFA in Graphic Design & Art Direction program is designed for creative practitioners who wish to advance their knowledge, skills and specialism within the field of visual communication.

Each student will develop a practice-led investigation within this broader context, actively constructing a bespoke body of design knowledge which combines theory, practice, research, entrepreneurship and innovation from a wide range of creative activities.

They will be taught to question and expand their creative thinking and generic design process by developing their analytical skills; engaging in critical dialogues; work independently, collaboratively and interdisciplinary; experimenting in a range of directions before delivering professional and innovative outcomes to defined audiences with confidence. All creative activities are supported by strategic thinking, robust methodologies and informed by practice-led research.

BA (Hons) Interior Design is concerned with the occupation of space, how it is used and importantly, how it is experienced. We promote the understanding and subsequent remodelling of existing spaces, in order to create meaningful interventions.

This course views interior design as a distinct, rigorous practice. Through architectural and design interventions, we engage with collaborative and creative ventures to enhance human interaction with their environment. This can be applied at an architectural scale whilst appreciating the detail and fabrication of objects, surfaces and materials.

The core elements of the course are taught by practising designers and architects, touching on all aspects of interior design such as interior architecture, exhibition design, event /set design or object/element design.

The course advocates the synthesis of this ideology as a creative, rigorous and intellectual process. We value ideas, invention and practical resolution in the creation of new, and often unconventional interior identities. We can create experiential, experimental or functional spaces. We shape environments, generate identities, question programs, detail objects, design or specify materials and furniture.

There is an increased need to visually communicate fashion-based ideas. This requires a creative who has a clear appreciation of and experience in developing fashion concepts, understanding and dealing with the associated critical pathways and the practical means by which to communicate. On this course, you will be encouraged to critically evaluate and creatively respond to these conditions and define your own new role within fashion.

You will be interested in the way fashion is consumed (beyond wearing it) and the opportunities this presents for developing innovative visual practice-based work. Fashion is changing due to many external factors such as digital platforms and media, and issues around sustainability. There are also changes in the role fashion plays and how it has become increasingly an exciting area for inter-disciplinary exploration within design, culture and society. At the heart of this are the new ways that fashion is becoming explored, extended, designed and consumed.

We will develop you to be a highly creative fashion visionary, with an emphasis to engage, explore, question, visualise, illustrate, develop and communicate fashion concepts, trends, products and ideas through publication, exhibition, art direction and styling.

Placement options
Contacts in all areas of the creative industries help with providing placements to enhance your experience of working in the fashion and design industry. You will be encouraged to take placements during your period of study.

With the rapidly changing nature of social and digital media, content needs to be designed strategically, engagingly and at pace.

Our BA (Hons) Future Media Production offers the skills and understanding to work at the forefront of the creative and digital sectors. It’s a course that will equip you with the tools to design, create, manipulate and deliver engaging digital media content for a wide range of audiences.

The course brings together key aspects of contemporary professional media practice, learning beyond the narrow confines of any single discipline. As such, you’ll learn alongside and collaborate with artists and designers across a range of exciting projects – laying the foundations for industry networking, technical and creative skills that will prove vital for a professional future in the creative media industries.

As a student at the School of Digital Arts you will work in an environment that is purpose-built for today’s fast-moving creative and digital sectors – offering boundary-breaking, cross-disciplinary learning that reflects modern project-based working practices. It’s a place that offers the opportunity to discover your passions and explore your role through collaboration within our dynamic creative community of animators, sound designers, filmmakers, games developers and more. And, just as it’s home to a cutting-edge creative community, it has the facilities to match. This means that you can develop industry-standard skills for creating content across the latest digital platforms.  

Just as SODA offers the perfect place as a creative student, Manchester provides the ideal setting. It’s a globally renowned and intensely creative city, second only to London as a hub for the UK’s media and creative sectors. The nearby MediaCityUK is home to major media and television businesses including the BBC and ITV, along with a host of independent operators, while the city also hosts a substantial animation, film and digital/tech sector. For students, it makes this a city for learning industry-relevant knowledge and workplace-ready skills. For budding creative media professionals, it makes the city a starting point for building a network, gaining experience and embarking on a career in the media, games and digital tech industries.