Graphic Design BA (Hons)
Length:
3 or 4 year options
UCAS Code:
W210 (3 Year)
W216 (4 Year)
Institution Code:
N39
Sandwich courses:
Creative Professional Development (1 year, Level 5 diploma), or Creative Computing (1 year, Level 5 diploma), available between years 2 & 3
Be inspired to apply innovative and creative solutions to branding, packaging, and promotional design for commercial markets.
This course is highly respected in the industry for its contemporary and ideas-led approach, with a focus on branding, identity design and sustainable planet-friendly packaging. You’ll have the opportunity to work on a wide range of design problems, including brand promotion, editorial design and digital design, with an emphasis on creating multi-channel brand worlds for a range of businesses including brand creation for the premium food and drink industry, and cultural organisations. Typography, copywriting, imagery, print, motion design, materials and physical making are all integral to your projects and learning.
Recent awards:
- Wood Pencil awarded to two Graphic Design students at D&AD New Blood Awards 2022
- Bronze awarded to a Graphic Design student, Pentawards 2022
Why study with us
- Share your first year with other graphics students, and continue to work alongside each other, allowing for a unique cross fertilisation of knowledge, skills and experience.
- Develop skills in typography, printing, layout, photography, design research, idea generation, visual narrative and storytelling.
- Learn technical skills in design-related digital software like InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, while exploring print, paper, materials, formats and handcraft/making skills.
- Become adept at understanding and deciphering a brief, researching and generating ideas, problem-solving, developing the most successful concept and executing and presenting the final work.
- Work with expert staff, all talented designers and educators, many are practising designers working with clients week in, week out.
- Participate in workshops and classes run by external professionals, undertake project briefs initiated and taught by designers from industry, and enter national and international design competitions judged by the design industry.
Course Content
Year 1
- Develop skills in typography, printing, layout, photography, design research, idea generation, visual narrative and story telling
- Learn technical skills in various design-related digital media such as InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator
- Explore print, paper, material, format and hand-craft/making skills
- Develop your ability to design solutions for presenting complex data and information through editorial design and infographics.
Year 2
- Work on visual identity, packaging design, advertising and promotion, design for digital platforms and editorial design
- Work on projects set by external bodies such as industry employers, live clients and competition briefs
- Pitch your work to leading industry professionals
- Collaborate with second year students from another course at NUA on interdisciplinary projects.
Year 3
- Construct a professional portfolio of work
- Undertake projects including competition briefs and other professionally-focused projects
- Enhance creative thinking, idea generation and problem solving; alongside core skills in typography, image use and production
- Complete a Research Report that provides broad contextualisation to your practice.
Careers Information
Our course provides a range of employment-focused tools, allowing you to develop a professional portfolio and gain a strong sense of your career aspirations. Graduates have achieved great success, receiving multiple awards from prestigious competitions such as D&AD New Blood Awards, Pentawards (global packaging community), Creative Conscience and many agency-led competitions, leading to direct access to the design industry.
Graduates have found employment at some of the most prestigious global design agencies including Turner Duckworth, JKR, Magpie, Ted Baker, Design Bridge & Partners, Pearlfisher, Accept & Proceed, Mucho (San Francisco), Bulletproof, Ragged Edge, Pentagram, NB Studio, Elmwood and many, many more.
Typical career paths include
- Junior designer
- Graphic designer
- Packaging designer
- Creative director
- Branding designer
- Editorial designer
- Brand strategist
- Copywriter
- Marketing creative
- Photographer
- Website/app designer
- Printmaker/printer
- Teacher
- University lecturer
- Social media creator
- Digital entrepreneur
- Art director
You’ll also get specialist creative careers advice from our Business and Employability Team to help support you as you plan your career.
Jack Shorter
Tabbed Section
Typical UK offers
A / AS Levels – GCE
GCE A/AS Levels 3 A-level qualifications at grades BCC (104 UCAS Tariff points) or above. Where candidates are not taking 3 A-levels, Norwich University of the Arts will consider combinations of A-level/AS-level and other Level 3 qualifications.
BTEC Extended Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Distinction, Merit, Merit in an art, design or media related subject
BTEC Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Distinction*, Distinction* in an art, design or media related subject
T Levels
A T Level in any subject with overall grade Merit or above
UAL Extended Diploma
Merit
UAL Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
UAL Level 4 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
Access to Higher Education Diploma (Art and Design)
Pass
International Baccalaureate Diploma
A minimum of 26 points
Norwich University of the Arts welcomes applicants of all ages from all backgrounds. Your application will be primarily assessed through your portfolio (if required), responses to questions asked and personal statement, so even if you have no formal qualifications or do not meet our typical offers it can still be worth applying.
If you are studying at the time of your application and your application is successful it is likely that you will receive a conditional offer.
If the qualification that you are studying is not shown, do not worry as we are able to accept other pre-entry qualifications as well as combinations of different qualifications. Please do contact our Student Recruitment Team if you have any queries.
International applications
We accept qualifications from all over the world. To find our entry requirements from a specific country, please check our dedicated international pages.
Most international students are required to hold an English language qualification. Applicants are required to have a minimum UKVI approved IELTS exam score of 6.0 overall, with a minimum of 5.5 in each section. Equivalent English language qualifications are acceptable such as, IB English language syllabus A or B/English Literature (Grade 4).
We also accept some alternative English qualifications. Learn more about our English entry requirements.
You can email us on international@norwichuni.ac.uk if you’d like to discuss your application individually.
BA (Hons) Graphic Design degree portfolio guidance
Portfolios should show examples of your work — both finished and work in progress — that demonstrate your interests and skills. Your portfolio should be made up of work that reflects your creativity, personal interests and influences, as well as demonstrating your technical skills and ability. It doesn’t have to be perfect as we can assess your potential from your work in progress.
Your portfolio should be relevant to this course, but you can include a wide range of work that shows your creativity, technical competence and understanding of innovative design.
You may wish to include some of the following:
- Drawings, painting or illustrations that demonstrate your image making skills, including life drawings, images drawn from observing people and landscapes or from your imagination
- Models or sculptural works in any medium
- Experiments in various printmaking processes
- Typography
- Editorial work
- Collages, montages and mixed media
- Web design
- Sound design
- Film or animation work
- Photography
- Work created using Adobe Creative Suite or other appropriate design software package
- Package design
- Visual identity
- Advertising
- Brand extension – how your idea works across a range of media
- Suggestions for context (i.e. where you see this work being used)
Further portfolio advice and tips
Get more advice on presentation formats, layouts and when to submit your portfolio in the application process.
2024/25 University fees for new entrants
Norwich University of the Arts will assess students’ tuition fee status using the guidance provided by the UK Council for International Student Affairs
Students from the UK or Ireland and EU students with ‘Settled’ or ‘Pre-Settled’ status will be charged ‘Home’ fees if they meet the relevant residency requirements. They will usually be eligible for a tuition fee loan from the UK government, meaning that they won’t have to pay Norwich University of the Arts’ tuition fees upfront.
Students who do not meet the necessary residency requirements will usually be charged ‘Overseas’ fees and will not be eligible for the UK government tuition fee loan. Since 2021/22, this includes new entrants from the EU, EEA, and Switzerland who do not have ‘Settled’ or ‘Pre-Settled’ status, because the UK has now formally left the EU.
Fee status | Course | Annual fee |
---|---|---|
Home | Undergraduate degree (full-time three and four year degree) | £9,250 |
Overseas | Undergraduate degree (full-time three and four year degree) | £18,000 |
Inflation in subsequent years
The rules for inflation on fees in subsequent years depend on the type of fee status and level.
- For Home undergraduate students starting in 2024, inflation may be applied to your fees in later years, if the UK government were to increase the fee cap beyond the current limit of £9,250 per year. If such an increase were to apply, we would confirm this in advance to you of each academic year, and we would limit the increase to the maximum allowed by the Office for Students.
- For Overseas undergraduate students starting in 2024, inflation will be applied to your fees in later years. We will confirm this in advance to you of each academic year, and we will limit the increase to no more than the Office for Students’ recommended inflationary measure, which is RPI-X. RPI-X is calculated by the Office for Budget Responsibility. In setting fees for the following year, we will use the Office for Budget Responsibility’s RPI-X forecast for quarter 3 of the relevant year.
For Home and overseas postgraduate degree students starting in 2024, fees will remain the same for each year of your course.
Financial support for UK students in 2024
Tuition fee loans and loans for living costs are usually available to UK and some EU students, as well as non-repayable Norwich University of the Arts bursaries based on family income. Find out more about applying for funding.
International students
We offer a range of scholarships for international students to support your studies with us.
- Group briefings
- Academic tutorials
- Group tutorials
- Lectures
- Workshops
- Critiques (crits)
- Seminars
- Finished pieces of work
- Presentations
- Written work
- Your research
- A reflective journal
Between Years 2 and 3 of this course, you’ll have the opportunity to undertake one of the following additional qualifications:
Creative Professional Development (1 year, Level 5 Diploma)
Our Creative Professional Development Diploma gives you the chance to spend a year exploring your post-uni job options through a structured programme of input sessions and work-based learning. This year offers two much-sought-after industry placements – the first lasting six weeks, the second 12 weeks, and a group project or ‘hackathon’ exploring freelancing and business start-up.
Creative Computing (1 year, Level 5 Diploma)
Our Creative Computing Diploma introduces you to coding and computational skills that will advance and complement your creative practice. No prior experience of coding is needed, just a curiosity about creative computing and a desire to push your own practice into new realms. You’ll also develop a wider knowledge of the creative tech industries, available roles and opportunities.
Integrated Foundation Year
Four year degrees are exactly the same as our three year degrees but include an extra year of study at the beginning – an Integrated Foundation Year.
An Integrated Foundation Year is about developing the skills, knowledge and the confidence you need to successfully complete your degree course. Building on your experience from A Level or equivalent courses, the Integrated Foundation Year curriculum allows time to develop the practical, creative and conceptual skills that are critical to successfully completing an undergraduate degree at Norwich. You will achieve this, making full use of the University workshops and studio facilities.
While studying an Integrated Foundation Year on BA (Hons) Graphic Design you’ll gain fundamental design skills centred around typography, publishing, packaging and building a brand. You will first encounter four intense week-long projects, each focused on a key area of design, before progressing to explore graphic sequences and thematic design.
There are weekly critiques on progress and you will be expected to engage fully with the iterative process. There will also be an opportunity to negotiate your own brief. Regular workshops will enable you to continually build on your digital skills using industry standard software.
You’ll be taught by Graphics tutors throughout and you’ll have the opportunity to join first, second and third year students for guest lectures.
Typical UK offers and entry requirements for Integrated Foundation Year entry
GCE A/AS Levels
2 A-level qualifications at grades CC or higher.
BTEC Extended Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Merit, Merit, Pass in an art, design or media related subject
BTEC Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Distinction, Merit in an art, design or media related subject
T Levels
Pass (D or E on the core)
UAL Extended Diploma
An overall Pass
UAL Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
An overall Pass
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
Access to Higher Education Diploma (Art and Design)
Pass
International Baccalaureate Diploma
A minimum of 24 points
Norwich University of the Arts welcomes applicants of all ages from all backgrounds. Your application will be primarily assessed through interview and portfolio review so even if you have no formal qualifications or do not meet our typical offers it can still be worth applying.
Find out more about four year degrees at NorwichTeaching Staff
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