Program Overview

Illustration BA(Hons)

Course Overview

Illustration is a powerful means of expressing ideas, eliciting emotion and sparking imagination. By enhancing your traditional craft skills and experimenting with new technologies, tools and techniques, you’ll develop your own unique visual language as you master the art of making images come to life.

On this Illustration degree, you’ll become an original, critical thinker, and adept visual problem solver. Through interactions with clients, art directors and designers, you’ll gain the skills needed to create a standout illustration portfolio and the professional experience required to succeed in your career.

Key Details

• Location: Falmouth Campus
• Course duration: 3 years / 4 years
• Attendance: Full-time / Professional Placement
• UCAS code: W221 / FY12 / PY20

Course Structure

Year One

• Visual Problem Solving: Explore a broad range of visual problem-solving strategies and develop analytical and project management skills.
• Practice & Purpose: Investigate how illustration operates within the industry and how it communicates with audiences.
• Media & Methods: Develop a creative, imaginative and personal approach to your work while gaining awareness of the roles of media, mark making and process within industry.
• Context & Audience: Focus on the contexts of narrative illustration and deepen your understanding of how to communicate inclusively to a range of audiences.

Year Two

• Refine & Apply: Experiment with a range of established and emerging technologies and undertake reflective and analytical research to refine your visual language.
• Challenging Subjects: Explore illustration as a vehicle for communicating change and developing tools for improving equality, diversity, inclusivity and sustainability.
• Introduce & Negotiate: Develop your first independent negotiated practice project, relating to key contexts in contemporary illustration practice.
• Collaboration: Develop and utilise collaboration skills through working as part of a collaborative team.

Professional Placement (Optional)

• Spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation.
• Develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts.

Year Three

• Define & Realise: Work towards the development of an authentic visual language through ongoing visual and intellectual experimentation and a process of critical analysis.
• Research & Extend: Engage with an extended programme of independent research on a subject that supports your illustration practice.
• Connect & Transition: Develop your Final Major Project, an independent body of work utilising appropriate processes defined by your strengths and interests within the field of illustration.
• Professional Practice: Equip yourself with the necessary skills to operate within your chosen career path.

Integrated Foundation Year (Optional)

• Why study an Integrated Foundation Year route?
• What you'll study in your Foundation year
• Modules:
  • Explore
  • Technique
  • Apply
  • Industry
  • Launch

How You'll Learn & Be Assessed

• How you'll learn: This Illustration degree balances creativity with professional practice. You'll gain hands-on knowledge and experience through project work, live briefs and client meetings.
• How you'll be assessed: 100% of your assessment will be coursework.

Facilities

• Dedicated open plan studios and seminar rooms
• Printmaking workshop
• Life drawing studio
• Range of IT facilities with full software and printing facilities
• Access to over 140,000 books, comprehensive electronic journal resource and DVD library featuring over 17,000 titles

Staff

• Our teaching staff are practising illustrators with experience working for the likes of the Wall Street Journal, the Lancet Medical Journal, United Airlines and Varoom.

Careers

• Our Illustration graduates have worked as:
  • Freelance illustrators working in editorial, advertising, publishing, fashion and narrative across a broad range of national and international clients.
  • Designers, art directors and animators in companies such as the British Museum, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Goodgame Studios, Nickelodeon, The Telegraph and Vault49 Design.
  • App and web designers
  • Film and TV graphic designers
  • Concept and character artists and visualisers

Fees, Costs & Funding

• Tuition fees for students starting the course in September 2025
• Annual tuition fee: £9,535 per year (Full-time UK), £17,950 per year (Full-time EU/international)
• Additional typical course costs for Integrated Foundation Year pathway
• Funding: For information about funding available, please visit our student funding pages.

What We're Looking For

• We want someone who:
  • Has visual problem-solving skills, with a specific focus on generating ideas.
  • Shows development of visual language in drawing, life drawing, media, mark-making experimentation, reflective analysis and finished pieces.
  • Has a good contextual understanding of what illustration is.
  • Is confident in their abilities and prepared for the challenges of higher education.
  • Can communicate effectively.
  • Has a theoretical understanding of visual arts issues.