BA in Art and Design
Birmingham, United Kingdom
DURATION
3 up to 4 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2024
TUITION FEES
GBP 9,250 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* UK students: £9,250 per year | international students: £13,980 per year
Scholarships
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Introduction
Maker? Thinker? Futurist? Coder? Performer? Technologist? Conservationist? Designer? Interested? Many innovative creative studios now define themselves as interdisciplinary, a word which we define as the fluid movement across the fields of art, design and technology.
What's covered in this course?
Our course will prepare you to be ready for employment within the creative industries by providing you with long-term creative skills to map out your creative future. With you at the centre, we will explore the intersections of art and design, providing a space where you can understand, develop and create a career in the evolving creative industries. You will develop the necessary self-awareness to question, make, play and create with others.
The versatility of our experimental studio environment will enable you to explore the necessary collisions that innovative ideas creation now requires while enhancing a range of core skills including design thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and making.
Whether you choose to combine creative coding with foraging for natural materials, photography with artificial intelligence, or welding with audio performance, you will respond to live briefs set by real-life clients.
The flexible, student-centred approach to the curriculum, informed by professional practitioners, will enable you to be imaginative, confident and convincing in designing and shaping your role in tomorrow’s free-flowing, boundary-free creative industries.
Creative technologies pathway
All students will be introduced to the fundamentals of interdisciplinary art and design practice with a focus on new creative technologies, which forms the core ethos of this course. In line with the development of our digital futures, we are introducing an optional pathway in Creative Technologies which will give you the opportunity to focus specifically on further developing your digital skills through a breadth of technological approaches.
If you choose the Creative Technologies pathway you will cover the same curriculum but will opt for technology-based outcomes. You will be assessed in relation to your exploration, questioning and use of a range of contemporary digital technologies and your creative applications in relation to the module theme. Work may still embrace a sense of physicality, but the focus will retain an element of Creative Technologies. You can either choose the Creative Technologies pathway at the start of your studies or transfer over to the Creative Technologies pathway at the end of each academic year. At the end of each year, during feedback with tutors, you can transfer over to the Creative Technologies pathway, but you will be required to evidence 80% engagement with the weekly Creative Technologies workshops, which you will document on a digital platform ‘Workshop Log’. If you have not engaged in workshops to 80%, you will need to evidence sufficient engagement over the summer.
Professional placement year
This course offers a professional placement year. This allows you to spend a whole year with an employer, between the second and third years of your degree and is a great way to find out more about your chosen career. Some students even return to the same employers after completing their studies.
The University will draw on its extensive network of local, regional and national employers to support you in finding a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. If you do not find a suitable placement, you will be automatically transferred back to the standard, non-placement version of the course.
Please note that fees are payable during your placement year, equivalent to 20% of the total full-time course fee for that year (£1,850 for UK students).
Why choose us?
- 92% of students are satisfied with the teaching of this course (NSS 2022).
- Our cutting-edge course is future-focused and has been designed in collaboration with leading industry partners.
- Creative Technologies are one of the leading future jobs markets.
- You will work on live briefs set by real-life clients, and in your second year, you will have the opportunity to choose to do a work placement or study abroad.
- Our course explores and unites the fundamental creative principles that are common to all three schools of Birmingham City University’s Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts (BICA). These are the School of Art, the School of Visual Communication, and the School of Games, Film and Animation.
- Birmingham School of Art is celebrating 130 years of art at Margaret Street – its Grade I-listed building, located in the heart of the Colmore Business District, and in close proximity to the city’s cultural institutions and creative hubs, e.g. Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Barber Institute and the Jewellery Quarter.
Curriculum
First Year
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete all the following core modules (totalling 120 credits)
- Thought Lab
- Materials Lab
- Digital Lab
- Performance Lab
- Nature Lab
- Speculative Lab
Second Year
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete all the following core modules (totalling 100 credits)
- Live Project: Local
- Live Project: National
- Live Project: Global
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete at least 20 credits from the following list of optional modules:
- Collaborative Practice
- Work Placement
Core modules are guaranteed to run. Optional modules will vary from year to year and the published list is indicative only.
Professional Placement Year (Optional)
In order to qualify for the award of BA (Hons) Art and Design with Professional Placement Year a student must successfully complete the following module.
- Professional Placement Year
Final Year
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete all the following core modules (totalling 60 credits)
- Major Project: Research Lab
- Futures Lab
Plus one of the following core modules (totalling 60 credits):
- Creation Lab
- Creation Lab: Creative Technologies
Career Opportunities
Enhancing employability skills
Our course seeks to respond to the rapidly evolving creative industries, to enable you to be not only ready for immediate employment, but also for future evolutions within the industries, by providing you with long-term skills and employability. Informed by professional practitioners and researchers, the course reflects pioneering practices that cross art, design, and creative technologies. The course will enable you to be imaginative, confident and convincing in taking up and even designing and shaping your future role as a creative leader and practitioner of change.
The course offers strong employability potential for students as the Digital Creative sector is the largest growth sector of the creative industries. All skills and capabilities developed on the course are highly transferable and will support you to develop a range of knowledge, skills, behaviours attributes and attitudes which will enable you to be successful not just in employment but in life. The breadth and fluidity of the course will enable you to build awareness and development of the following transferable skills: adaptability; creativity; collaboration; problem-solving; communication; listening; analytical reasoning; critical thinking; attention to detail; and, writing.
Key employability skills will also be acquired through:
- Working on live briefs with real clients in an employment context, enables you to collaborate, communicate effectively, build social skills and develop a global perspective.
- The option of a work placement module, professional placement year, and multiple live briefs will be offered with potential employers as real partners in learning.
- A Personal Tutor will help you reflect on your employability.
- School Employability Leads, Academic Supervisors, Careers Advisors and Graduate Plus Teams will be able to provide support and advice.
Placements
As a student in our BA Art and Design course, you will be offered the choice of taking one of the ADM Faculty Modules. Each module will have a live focus whether that be working across the City collaboratively with students from across the Faculty, working within the industry in work experience placements or working on live project briefs.
You will have the option to take a year-long professional work placement sandwich year to spend time directly working in the industry through our BA (Hons) Art and Design with Professional Placement Year. This presents a fantastic opportunity to gain confidence, build experience and develop workplace skills before graduating through a work-based learning opportunity. If you choose this route you will be supported by the course team in researching their chosen area of work and given the advice to secure a placement (or placements) that enable you to develop key employability skills in a direct, interesting and meaningful way. It provides the opportunity to spend a year completing structured work experience anywhere in the world, before returning to Birmingham School of Art for the final year of the BA Art and Design course to apply what has been learnt working in the industry.
Links to Industry
The course is directly supported by Jason Bruges Studio, and founder Jason Bruges is our Visiting Professor: Design Studio Practice.
Birmingham School of Art has a wide array of links with partner organisations regionally, nationally and internationally. These partnerships will provide work experience opportunities for you, and contribute to your learning and teaching activities. Our overseas partnerships often result in opportunities for you to mix with students from different countries and gain different perspectives, as well as opportunities to undertake a period of study overseas.
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