MA Illustration

Duration

1 year full-time / 2 years part-time

Institution code

L28

UCAS Code

N/A

A comic strip titled: 'My Every Day by Spaceman George' showing daily activities in exaggerated and whimsical scenes featuring a figure dressed in white.

Ben Wilkinson

An illustration featuring a dark, cloaked figure standing at the edge of a sheer cliff gazing downwards. Below are barren branches with a few red berries.

Ben Wilkinson

An illustration of a graceful mermaid with long flowing hair and intricate jewelry dressed in deep purple attire set against a matching purple background.

Chi HaoYue

A fantasy mermaid character with flowing blue hair, intricate orange and blue attire adorned with jewellery and ribbons on a light background.

Chi HaoYue

An illustration of two people standing beside a large fish labeled: 'CO2' in three identical illustrations with varying background colours.

Chris King

An illustration of a person with short dark hair and a somber expression wearing a textured red garment against a muted, shadowy background.

Emilie Peaker

Two detailed ink sketches depicting brutalist architecture on separate pages featuring geometric shapes and intricate line work.

Emilie Peaker

A collage of a person in grayscale leaning over a pile of letters set against a muted background.

Emma Jones

A comic strip of a person struggling to get up at different times, with a phone showing alarms at varying intervals and light changing.

Katy Mistry

A triptych artwork featuring a woman with a swan holding an apple and flying among birds in a pink and purple sky.

Maja Szumilas

An illustration featuring a warm, golden sunset illuminating a cozy room with a stairway, a plant, and wall art casting long shadows on the brick walls.

Olivia Earnshaw

Pratik Nathani

The Course

This course offers an expansive understanding of contemporary illustration through an inquisitive and explorative programme of study. You will explore multidisciplinary methods of working which extend the concepts of communication and visualisation through research, practice and discursive critique.

The course offers students a stimulating space for exploring the boundaries of illustration. It will offer the opportunity to unpick the specialist mechanisms related to authorial and/or commercial practices, including a range of expanded illustrative applications. The course will encourage you to consider co-designed and collaborative methods of practice, as well as autobiographical approaches derived from the ‘lived experience’.

You will be supported by teaching staff with diverse research and practical interests from the fields of illustration and its broader visual cultures. Research and dissemination methods will be introduced and developed with the support of workshops, lectures and seminars with opportunity to situate work in relevant professional contexts.

The course celebrates image making through analogue and digital methodologies which complement contemporary and expanded illustrative practices. You will be encouraged to undertake in-depth examination and experimentation of interdisciplinary practical and theoretical research methods through hands-on and playful approaches.

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The Structure

Our postgraduate courses include both specialist subject modules and transdisciplinary core modules. Both are underpinned by independent learning. You will be supported with a variety of teaching and learning methods, including individual supervision, group tutorials, live briefs and project proposals, as well as being encouraged to collaborate with students from other postgraduate courses.

Our academic staff are engaged in contemporary practice in their specialism and will support, encourage and challenge you during your studies. All postgraduate students are taught together in research methods and business-related modules.

Postgraduate courses can be studied either full-time over one academic year or part-time over two academic years. Teaching is broken down into three teaching blocks per year.

Students are able to access a range of specialist facilities aligned to their research interest.

Specialist Resources

Students are able to access a range of specialist facilities by arrangement. These include: Macs equipped with graphics tablets and software for tradigital drawing methods and a range of traditional printmaking resources. Our digital print resource enables professional-standard, large-format digital printing and print finishing.