Master of Arts - Visual Communication
- 1 year
- Duration
- 18,000 GBP
- Price
- Rolling admission
- Start
- Rolling admission
- Deadline
- Master
- Degree
- Campus
- Format
- Canterbury / United Kingdom
- Location
Program description
On our MA in Visual Communication programme at UCA Canterbury, you can advance your design work and develop as a cultural innovator who can utilise your work to amuse, educate, and persuade.
In this course, you'll learn how to communicate ideas and meaning using a variety of media, including print, motion, and digital. You'll also be encouraged to pick up new skills that will help you in your design work. You'll discover how to approach design as a strategy for positively altering behaviours in enduring and gratifying ways.
Additionally, you'll get the chance to work together with other members of our creative community and improve your work in the areas required to develop into a creative leader in the field of visual communication, which includes print media, user experience, motion design, web design, exhibition design, and advertising.
By giving you the knowledge and abilities to recognise and address design issues in cross-disciplinary settings such as conventional and digital printmaking, moving image suites, and 3D studios, the MA in Visual Communication is intended to support your development as a writer and inventor.
You'll learn through a variety of lectures, project briefs, workshops, written assignments, group critiques, and individual tutorials under the direction of Hugh Harwood and a team of professional designers with connections at the highest level of the industry, including Slawa Harasymowicz and Vida Vega.
You can choose the Integrated International Pre-Masters, a year-long preparatory programme of study to get you ready for your master's in the UK, improving your speaking and writing skills in English along with your specialty skills, research knowledge, and self-confidence.
Program structure
Term one
The University, its technical workshops, and other resources will be introduced to you. In the first term, you'll take part in a variety of lectures and seminars and begin to investigate your creative practise.
- Defining Your Practice
In order to inform the thorough development of your project idea later in the course, you will investigate creative activity. The goal of the unit is to give you a well-organized framework that will enable you to explore the potential of approaches, concepts, and themes in your field while also guiding and locating your practise.
Term two
You start working on your MA project during term two, analysing and testing the objectives of your proposal during an extended period of self-directed study.
- Context and Method
You'll actively participate in a variety of contemporary discussions that offer a cultural and intellectual background for thinking about concepts in visual communication through a series of lectures and seminars. Through the debate of theory and the analysis of specific design-led work and texts, the programme explores cross-disciplinary challenges.
- Project Development
You will establish the themes and area of concentration for your final project throughout this course, as well as evaluate and test the objectives of your proposal during an extended period of independent study. Through tutorials, group critiques, and presentations, which will promote the advancement of your work and give rigorous critical appraisal from staff, peers, and professional practitioners, the growth of your project will be directed and questioned at this point. As you start to work more independently as a researcher and practitioner, refining your research questions and the research methods you are using, you will continue the process of developing appropriate methods and strategies for the realisation of your project while encouraging the continued exploration and questioning of your ideas.
Term three
You'll use the knowledge you learn through your research to produce a final body of work in the third term of the course.
- Realisation and Dissemination
Your final MA project, which is the conclusion and consolidation of your studies in the form of a finished piece or body of work, will require you to use the information and expertise you've gained from earlier units. It should demonstrate professional-level cohesion and originality. A critical article that examines the specific practical output of the MA project, its interpretation, and its success as a demonstration of your approach to creative practise through research will also be required of you.
Price
Fee for two semesters (1 year) is 18,000 GBP for international students
We have offer a range of scholarships and fee discounts.
Requirements for applicants
If you do not have qualifications from the United Kingdom, we will accept equivalent qualifications from your native country for admittance into our programs.
In addition to academic credentials, some of our courses require a portfolio of previous work.
For our Master's courses, we usually require that you have successful completion of your Bachelor's degree or equivalent from a recognised university.
English Language requirements for MA/MSc & MBA courses:
- IELTS UKVI or Academic - Listening 5.5, Reading 5.5, Speaking 5.5, Writing 5.5, Total 6.5
- Test of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL) iBT - Listening 17, Reading 18, Speaking 20, Writing 17, Total 90
- Pearson Test of English (Academic) - Listening 59, Reading 59, Speaking 59, Writing 59, Total 59
- Cambridge English Advanced (CAE) or Cambridge English Proficiency - Listening 162, Reading 162, Speaking 162, Writing 162, Total 176
- Trinity College London Integrated Skills in English (ISE) - Listening Pass, Reading Pass, Speaking Pass, Writing Pass, Total ISE III
- LanguageCert International ESOL SELT - Listening 38, Reading 38, Speaking 38, Writing 38, Total B2 Communicator High Pass
Portfolio requirements
We'll need to examine your written or graphic portfolio for these courses in order to review it. Once you've applied, we'll send you an invitation to submit your portfolio via your applicant portal; more details will be given at that time. This can also be arranged for you if you would prefer to evaluate your work with the Academic Team in person while on campus.
About the university
The UCA team firmly believes that creativity enhances the vitality, innovation, and humanity of global communities. That is why the university has been a fervent supporter of creative research and teaching for the past 160 years.
Architecture, crafts, fashion, graphic design, illustration, fine art, photography, film, media, the performing arts, and creative business are among areas of study offered by the university. Employers in the creative sector hold a high regard for this programs because of their excellent teaching standards.
We want to inspire people to use their creativity to drive change, overcome challenges and improve the lives of others.
So we’ve designed our university to be an inclusive, dynamic environment. Our campuses across Surrey and Kent, our Institute for Creative Innovation in Xiamen, China, and our homes within partner organisations such as the Maidstone Television Studios all have one thing in common: they are places to forge inspiring partnerships, make work with purpose and build real solutions to human problems across the globe – whether that’s as part of our vibrant teaching and research community, or as a student on one of our courses.
Read more about University for the Creative Arts (UCA), United Kingdom
