Falmouth Flexible MA Graphic Design Student Insights

MA Graphic Design Flexible online study for contemporary global creative practice

Global Exploration of Graphic Design

The Course Our MA course in Graphic Design allows you to embark on a journey into the study of one the creative industry’s most exciting and stimulating subject areas; building on Falmouth’s reputation in the field and our innovative approach to online teaching.

Learning together as a global community allows you to reflect on your own interests and future pathway in graphic design; to build new skills, career directions, connections, and voice. Our five core modules cover a combination of practical, personal, entrepreneurial and theoretical learning experiences and are full of great content from inspiring leaders in the field. This creates insights and challenges to enable and support you to build expertise, thinking and awareness in relation to your subject and how you operate within it, now, and in the future.

We are a supportive culture and there are great staff and student advisors that are here to help you manage your journey at every step of the way. We are different to many online learning courses in that we create a vibrant community of learning with students from many cultures, backgrounds and career start points.

You may be learning at a distance, but we have built this course with the aim of creating communities of practice. You will not be working in isolation, you will be part of a course, like any campus-based course, there will be great opportunities share your work, engage in dialogue with others and to utilise your own geographic locations in a real-world sense to feed into the course. It is a pretty unique experience, full of potential for you.

Susanna Edwards Course Leader

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Application We advise anyone interested in this course to look at the subject in its breadth, to get knowledgeable about the field and excited about new possibilities for your work and career.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in person if you have any questions relating to the course I am always delighted to meet people online to talk about what I am most passionate about!

Student Quote We have recently collected some personal insights from our student cohort to share with you and some examples of their work. I hope you find these inspiring and insightful. It is always best to get a sense of a course from the student perspective.

We aim to show you real, live examples of how this online course is inspiring and engaging such a variety of great people around the world.

I hope you enjoy viewing them.

susanna.edwards@falmouth.ac.uk

Susanna

Susanna Edwards | Course Leader MA Graphic Design (online) Falmouth University Flexible Learning falmouth-design.online flexible.falmouth.ac.uk @graphicdesign.online Online meeting room: https://whereby.com/susannaedwards Read an article about our course here

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Sian Campbell

GDE750 Final Project

“This course has given me a new perspective on graphic design and opened my mind up to the opportunities that lay within design and in particular, how it can be used for good. Throughout my course I have designed and developed projects/tools that could easily be embedded into reality to aid those that suffer with their mental health – in fact, some projects have already started to come into fruition in my local town.

During the lockdown phase, it’s easy for people to quickly begin to feel the wrath of isolation, lose routine and begin to feel a decrease in the motivation they have to carry out everyday tasks. During these times it’s incredibly important to try and stay positive and find joy in as many moments as possible.”

Student Testimonials 2020

“Joy in Numbers is dedicated to finding new ways to bring joy

to communities. Through collaboration and engagement, this project has created an interactive space for local talents and businesses to host tutorials and workshops free of charge to the general public. Throughout this project I am hosting a series of live workshops/tutorials, post videos and upload premade DIY packages on our Instagram platform for the general public to access. Thus, creating a space that brings people together and forms a feeling of community spirit and generosity - and most importantly, joy.”

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE750 Final Project

GDE730 Studio & Entrepreneurship Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Jamie Baldwin

“During this time we need to be adaptive and respond to our surroundings, Design is a key discipline that relies on these traits. My final MA Project started with a focused on history and language of my location, Cornwall. As someone who moved here four years ago, I become fascinated by my surroundings and, through my studies with Falmouth Online I have been able to delve into these themes in greater detail. As our socioeconomic surroundings change, so has my project.

I have been working with community groups to discuss life after lockdown and asked the question: How can I use social design and community engagement to build a platform for collaboration and growth within my local area? This question has allowed me to explore a range of skills and disciplines within my creative practice, from documentary photography using homemade pinhole cameras to branding and web design.�

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE750 Final Project

GDE750 Final Project

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE750 Final Project

GDE750 Final Project

GDE750 Final Project

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Robin Schmich

GDE740 Applications and Interactions

“My passion for art and design has always been a big part of me. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always play by your rules, and so I found myself in a situation which you can explain as alienation from the self. With Falmouth University’s online course, I saw design as part of my future again. The program is ideally suited to online learning and fits around your life. Falmouth allows me to change careers without having to sacrifice.

The well-designed content, the industry-oriented insights, and the diversity and internationality among the students encourage creativity and innovation. Through this course, you gain the opportunity to take a more in-depth look at yourself while being equipped for the design world. With support from my tutors, I have pushed boundaries and worked in new, often alternative ways to develop my unique design practice.”

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE740 Applications and Interactions

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE710 Contemporary Practice

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE740 Applications and Interactions

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE740 Applications and Interactions

Student Testimonials 2020

Winnie Wu

GDE710 Contemporary Practice

“A well-designed curriculum teaches possibilities as an extension of where one is coming from on a personal level. The briefs are open-ended enough to have worked anywhere you were based in, devised to broaden critical thinking beyond the traditional notions of graphic design.

As the world becomes increasingly digital and complex, the currency of a freshly-conceived course attempts to address graphic design’s new positioning and nudges us towards the future by exploring its boundaries in relation to technology and theory. Even with some years of experience under my belt, there was always something new to take away each week to further my studio practice as I flexibly fit it around an already busy work schedule.”

Student Testimonials 2020

“HUMAN” is an interactive website built with javascript, focused on communicating human adaptability and resilience as something dynamic, forward-facing and optimistic. The colours used are what makes us all the same inside — beige for flesh, red for blood and aqua for water — set over a backdrop of murky green symbolising the plague. A strange colour combination and graphic styling for strange times, this typographic HUMAN is safe to interact with from the comfort of your home.”

Link to project: www.studiokaleido.net/human

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Tony Clarkson

“The course is great and I’m loving every minute of it.

I’ve worked as a designer for a lot of years, but I hadn’t been enjoying it for a while and needed something to get moving again because being a graphic designer is what I’ll always want to be.

GDE740 Applications and Interactions

Being online is what first made me think about joining, and it works, it fits in. The tutors are always there, even ‘out of hours’, they get you thinking that one step further with your ideas, they’re pretty inspiring and I’ve produced work here that I never thought I would, pieces I’m really proud of.

The others on the course are from all over: Germany, France, the US, just being online together hasn’t stopped us becoming a tight group, I think we’ve all got to know each other pretty well and that encourages you to get stuck in.”

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE720 History and Futures

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Rebecca Clulow

“The online MA Graphic Design has been a fantastic experience so far and I am really enjoying being a part of this Falmouth University course whilst studying around my full time job. I have wanted to gain a degree in Design for a very long time but struggled to find something that would fit around my very busy lifestyle.

Then I came across Falmouth and have never looked back!

I never studied towards a Bachelor’s degree as I started employment straight out of art college, so it was a huge leap for me to study a Master’s degree, but the tutors have been so helpful along the way and the other students are all there to inspire and support every step of the way too.”

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE720 History and Futures

“The course has pushed my design skills to their limits (and beyond) and have changed my outlook of design completely since I started in January 2019. I have improved so much as a Designer and am gaining more confidence in my abilities with every module that I complete.”

Student Testimonials 2020

“My most recent project has been a collaborative effort with members of my community, which has been a real whirlwind and enjoyable experience. I am in the process of finishing the designs for a book of poems which have been written by members of the public regarding their experiences of lockdown. Gaining such great feedback and interest around this project has been very rewarding and I cannot wait to send this to print to get my very first book distributed in real life!�

GDE720 History and Futures

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Alex Hughes

“This course has been everything I hoped it would. It’s allowed me to study for a masters in my own city, in my own time. It’s also allowed me to work under industry experts, each within their own expertise (e.g. typeface design) - from all over the world! The fast-paced nature of the work has also taught me to experiment within the design process and not focus so much on aesthetic beauty, but rather the ‘why’ behind the work.

It’s also helping me to create virtual relationships, with weekly tutorials and interactive webinars. My ambitions for the following 3 modules are to deepen my relationships with course tutors and tap into their specialisms; as well as continue to learn new skills (all alongside my current role as a designer).”

Student Testimonials 2020

Paint drops - this is a quick exploration of how my time is spent within a 24 hour period. There are 24 paint dots, each split into activities; i.e. sleep, work, eating, watching TV.

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE720 History and Futures

Map - this is an infographic exploration of the UK if all the earth’s remaining fossil fuels were to used up (and burned). The effect is a sea-level rise of around 25 meters, resulting in the new-look UK.

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE720 History and Futures

App - this was designed to counter the increasing child obesity problems in the UK; an interactive VR app where exploration, exercise and the outdoors are encouraged through gaming and competition.

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Benjamin Parfitt

“For me, the course overall has helped refine and develop my practice as a designer, as when I was coming up to the end of my third-year BA studies, I felt that I was really breaking into a stride and thought that the course would be a great opportunity further develop the types of project areas which I would like to pursue further as I go into the industry.

GDE750 Final Project

How I’m using design as a tool for social good is by using my own experiences with having a learning difference and using it as a platform for curiosity to delve into other learning differences such as dyslexia by speaking to people with dyslexia and trying to discover real positive tools to help with accessibility and to bring these consideration to the fore in type design.”

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

“My final project is based upon real accessibility issues around type design in the context of dyslexia and screen-based typography. I am looking at how variable fonts in particular can be used to help aid this process due to their flexible and customisable nature in design and their ability to store multiple font weights under one file.

This topic is important at this time as according to the British Dyslexia Association, 16% of people in the United Kingdom have dyslexia, however, that is only the diagnosed numbers.

With these numbers only going to continue to rise, in addition to the rise of possibilities with type design and technology, there is becoming an increasing urgency to help facilitate those with learning differences such as dyslexia.�

GDE750 Final Project

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE750 Final Project

Student Testimonials 2020

Andy Lau “Another thing to mention is that the response rate with instructors and supporting staff is phenomenal. During the 2020 virus epidemic, aside from the effects to my workplace, a load of unfortunate events dawned upon myself and my family. During this extremely difficult time, it was the first time I experienced human-kindness and support from online interaction. I will be forever thankful for Falmouth’s staff for being so understanding and helpful at the same time.

“The last time I was in school was around 8 years ago, I promised myself I would re-enter an institution in earning a more advanced degree, but never did I expect myself to be landed in an online course. At first, I worried about distant learning, isolation, and thought that peer relationships might be vague, yet a lot of unexpected goodness started seeping through and now I am truly enjoying what I’ve been taught and how great the course has been set up.

Then finally a few words regarding my classmates whom I’ve never met in person: They are the sweetest bunch of folks I wish to eventually meet some day! The chat group we share is ringing all the time with everyone sincerely helping one another out. The most beautiful thing is that I get to see a lot of cases and projects that were developed in the context of a whole other continent! It is very exciting to see how people with different cultural backgrounds and upbringing would tackle the same topic.

I would recommend this course to anyone who are prepared to take graphic design seriously. This is a very well setup course backed by a lovely team of professionals which enables you soak all the great content in from anywhere at any time.”

For starters the course is a great eye-opener. The weekly tasks are intentionally set up so that we would walk around, talk to people and focus our gaze on things normally un-noticed.

It definitely made me take more initiative to talk to a total stranger, and increasingly firing the right questions in making normal conversation more insightful.”

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

GDE730 Studio & Entrepreneurship

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Annie Bowers

“I never thought I could afford post-graduate education, but this course has made it possible for me to work around my full-time job and access an MA on a timetable that suits me. I was worried that I would feel isolated on an online course but this hasn’t been the case. There’s a real focus on building a studio culture, and we have many opportunities to present our projects to other students and to tutors.

GDE740 Applications and Interactions

A real turning point for me was a self-initiated project where I created an Anti-Map, a tool that encouraged exploration of an unknown area. Having the chance to set my own brief and develop my personal practice is invaluable, and getting insights from a wide range of people lead to breakthroughs I would never have reached alone.”

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Student Testimonials 2020

Contact To find out if Falmouth University’s flexible MA Graphic Design course is right for you and if you’re eligible to apply, or for help with applying, get in touch with one of our course advisors.

Call us on: 0800 5999 123 (from the UK) +44 (0)1223 447 713 (from overseas)

Student Testimonials 2020