Graphic Design

Kingston School of Art's graphic design students have won 44 international competitions in the last three years: including RSA, Creative Conscience Awards, ISTD and D&AD. This reflects the quality of work from this practice-based course. Kingston School of Art is listed sixth in the Good University Guide and the course is third in The Guardian subject league tables. Over the last three years, over 90% of graduates have gone on to employment in the creative industries.

We believe the success is founded on five main features of the department:

Breadth of curriculum: Students engage with a comprehensive range of industry lead and experimental project briefs within graphic design, allowing them to pursue their individual personal development.
Practice-based teaching: Experiencing live projects working with industry and a range of cultural and socially-engaged organisations provide students with invaluable professional experience. Projects also help students develop essential collaborative skills, working with people within and beyond graphic design.
The staff are practising designers who enrich the student experience with contemporary issues, events and challenges. Influential guest speakers reinforce the currency of the courses providing the latest insights into practice.
Facilities: Kingston School of Art has dedicated studios, and workshops that are unequalled nationally. Graphic design students can access all the workshop facilities to support their engagement with the design schools philosophy of thinking through making.
International opportunities: Many of our students take advantage of the Erasmus scheme to spend a year studying or working in Europe. We have a network of links with prestigious design institutions.

Graphic Design Practice: Undergraduate study

This longstanding and respected course has seen 90% of its graduates go on to work in the creative industries in the last three years. Its students' success is built on firm grounding in the subject, which enables the development of a wide range of design practice. This is underpinned by critical and historical investigation.

Students are encouraged to develop a personal practice within the contemporary and emerging discipline through rigorous investigation of a range of focused projects. Indicative design fields include; photography, film and animation, typography, interaction, service design, social design, book and editorial design.

An outward-facing course with strong links to industry gives students opportunities to participate in live projects and work with the broader design community. Collaboration, teamwork and cross-disciplinary projects are strongly encouraged to reflect professional practice. The course hosts regular visits to studios, events and conferences; both within the UK and further afield.

Graphic Design BA (Hons)

Vanguard of the new: Postgraduate studies

Kingston School of Art offers a 45-week masters course in graphic design that attracts students from all over the world. The course aims to support individual students through the development of a major self-directed project. This individual project is developed within a specialisation. Recent students have developed work which investigates specialist areas of the broader discipline:

Type and typography design
Identity and branding
Information design
Film
Photography

The learning is practice-based, supported by an exploration of visual and investigative research techniques.

The early part of the course encourages collaborative work with other postgraduate students in MA Fashion, Product and Furniture Design and Illustration Animation – exposing students to a common design philosophy of thinking through making and fostering team work.

Learning is supported with a series of expert professional practice lectures, workshop skills, external visits and a European field trip. From 2017, the course includes the option of a one-year industrial placement anywhere in the UK and Europe.

Students complete their project with a major critical report and presentation of a proposal. 83 per cent of the students are employed within the design and creative industries, whilst others move on towards further research MPhil and PhD study.