Cardiff School of Art & Design Graphic Communication Prospectus 2015/16

CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN

GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION BA (HONS) UCAS Code: W210 Entry requirements: Minimum Tariff: 300 Graphic design is about bringing ideas to life and making visual messages meaningful. At CSAD, we think of it as 'what human beings leave behind to communicate when they are no longer there in person'. A graphic communicator uses words, images, schematics, colour, form, metaphor, symbols and stories to innovate and create lasting messages.

With excellent employment rates, we are committed to preparing you for your career after CSAD. You will graduate having had the opportunity to build strong links in your field, not only through your live project briefs, but through our visiting speakers programme and the freedom within your curriculum to undertake professional placements.

Our award-winning course is built around a broad and varied curriculum, through which you will be encouraged to use as wide a range of materials and technologies as possible, through which you learn to develop ideas and identify your own distinct voice. You will be supported throughout by an experienced and dedicated academic team, in which specialist interest areas range from digital drawing to design festivals, and from print and screenbased media to sustainable professional practice.

We want you to be able to tailor your studies to match your aspirations and so, in your final year, you can elect to undertake a dissertation or detailed business plan, which may build the beginnings of a freelance career or the foundations for your own practice. Whether you choose this route, further study at CSAD, or aspire to a job within the industry, you will be well placed to join an excellent network of past graduates who are leading the field at both local and international level.

You will be learning at the home of the critically acclaimed Cardiff Design Festival, with the support of industry mentors. During your studies, you’ll team up with students from across other disciplines, developing your communication and teamwork skills as you identify the unique skills and insight you have to offer, and you will regularly be set live briefs – adding to your portfolio with real-world experience. In your second year, there is the chance to travel abroad through ERASMUS, immersing yourself in another culture’s use of graphic communications.

Further information: Admissions Tutor: Ray Nicklin rnicklin@cardiffmet.ac.uk

YOUR PLACE AT CSAD Meeting applicants is important to us.

We like to show you around, answer your questions and talk to you about your work and aspirations.

No doubt you would like to look at our facilities and the Llandaff campus and find out more about accommodation, transport in the city and finances.

This year we will be holding seven ‘Big Interview Events’ in our new building. The aims are to welcome candidates applying for places, give you the information you need, and conduct interviews. We will have a lot to show you and will be able to answer all your questions about studying with us and living in Cardiff. The dates of our ‘Big Interview Events’ are as follows, but we will be conducting interviews throughout the year for people who miss these or who are unable to attend on these dates.

The Interview Days for 2015 entry are:

10 DECEMBER 2014 28 & 30 JANUARY 2015 4 & 6 FEBRUARY 2015 11 & 13 FEBRUARY 2015

GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION

CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN

WHY CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART & DESIGN? BECAUSE YOU WANT TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN YOUR PASSION FOR ART & DESIGN

commitment, you will be encouraged throughout to establish a greater sense of what makes your creative identity both valuable and unique.

Your studies are built around three fundamental aspects of what it is to be an artist, maker, or designer: unique skills; creative ideas; and an ability to contextualise these in a professional situation.

These essential qualities – which are dependent upon one another – will form the basis for each of your briefs and assignments, throughout your three years at CSAD. They will be the markers of your progress towards being a well-rounded graduate; an individual who possess not only the talent, but also the confidence, experience, and insight, to thrive as a creative professional in today’s world. Your core skills will be a consistent focus, as you explore both new and established mediums and identify those practices that you’d like to pursue further.

In terms of your ideas, your tutors will be encouraging you to constantly reflect, question, and asses; to explore how and why the world came to be as it is and how it might be re-thought or re-imagined.

Contextualizing your skills and ideas is about gaining practical and professional experience. You will have a choice of projects to undertake, where you will collaborate with students from across the school’s other disciplines.

You will also have the chance to take up placements with an employer or voluntary organization. You may elect to join a research group or exhibit your work. You also have the chance to travel and study in Europe, India, Korea, Australia, Morocco or America. You can even begin to build your own business or creative professional practice.

With at least half of your studies delivered through teaching and the other half through your own

BECAUSE YOU WANT TO STUDY WITH LEADING ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS You need to be among people who will share in your passion and help you reach your potential. Our entrance expectations (300 UCAS points) and rigorous, but friendly, interview process create an expert community of students who are serious about their studies in art and design.

You will be joining other imaginative, curious and astute students artists, makers and designers in our studios.

People who are at the top of their game will teach you.

CSAD staff, academic and technical, as well as some of our administrative staff, are practitioners in their own right.

Our academic staff are engaged in front-line research and in business projects which ensure that we teach from a real position.

BECAUSE YOU WANT EXCELLENT ART AND DESIGN STUDIOS AND TECHNOLOGIES Professional artists and designers need excellent studios and workshops – and that’s what we provide. Our new facility on the Llandaff Campus is an ideas and creative factory, with extensive workshops and resources. Almost everything and anything we have available is for our students to use, from digital stitch and plaster moulding to our metal foundry and our rapid prototyping workshops.

We are also home to the only MIT accredited FabLab in a UK university.

BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BUILD A LONG AND REWARDING ART AND DESIGN CAREER You will study three modules each year and, at the end of each year, you’ll have just one single formal assessment.

You will be developing your work and improving it throughout the year, following the example of professional artists and designers; this is how they work, so it’s how we work too. You learn by thinking, enquiring and practice.

We work closely with design companies, arts and maker organizations, as well as the professional art and design community. There are tangible opportunities for you to gain work experience, bring your skills to a community project, and make professional contacts of the sort that have proven invaluable to countless graduates before you.

In your final year, you can elect to produce a detailed business plan instead of a research dissertation. Indeed you can navigate your three years with either a business or an academic focus. It’s up to you. We even have an incubation facility to support our best graduates in the establishment of their companies.

All of our Undergraduate programmes can be extended to study up to Masters level as an MDes or MFA (Professional Masters), MA (Academic and Creative Masters) or MPhil (Research Masters). All students achieving a 2:1 or above are guaranteed a place on one of our Masters programmes.

BECAUSE CARDIFF IS AMAZING Cardiff has such great provision for the arts, entertainment and sport. The mountains and sea are within such easy reach. What’s not to like?

FOUNDATION

UNDERGRADUATE

TAUGHT POSTGRADUATE

RESEARCH DEGREES

• Cardiff Diploma in Foundation Studies

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HNC Building Technology and Management (Ystrad Mynach)

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HND Architectural Design & Technology

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Master of Fine Art (MFA) Master of Design (MDes) Master of Design (MDes) SADI

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BSc (Hons) Architectural Design & Technology BA (Hons) Artist Designer: Maker BA (Hons) Fine Art BA (Hons) Ceramics BA (Hons) Textiles BA (Hons) Graphic Communication BA (Hons) Illustration BA (Hons) Product Design BSc (Hons) Product Design BA (Hons) Photographic Practice (Bridgend)

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MA (Cardiff School of Art & Design) Specialist Pathways only • Art & Science • Philosophy • Ecologies • Death and Visual Culture

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Postgraduate Certificate in Research Skills: Art & Design

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MA Ceramics MSc Advanced Product Design

(Art & Design) (Bridgend) allied programme only • • •

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Foundation Degree in Applied Art & Design (Bridgend) Foundation Degree in Ceramics (Cardiff and The Vale College) Foundation Degree in Contemporary Textiles Practice (Cardiff and The Vale College) Foundation Degree in Graphic Communication (Cardiff and The Vale College)

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MPhil PhD Professional Doctorate in Art Professional Doctorate in Design

www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/csad www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/studywithus CARDIFF SCHOOL OF ART & DESIGN, LLANDAFF CAMPUS, WESTERN AVENUE, CARDIFF, CF5 2YB 44 (0)29 2041 6070 +44 (0)29 2041 6640 csad@cardiffmet.ac.uk