Program Overview

Course overview

The Graphic Design BA (Hons) course at Coventry University challenges and guides students to become visionary, informed, responsible, and technically adaptable graphic designers. The course aims to get students industry-ready, whether that means joining a design business or starting up their own.

What you'll study

This course has a common first year, which enables students to work alongside students doing similar courses to widen their knowledge and exposure to other subject areas and professions.

Year one

• Design Exploration - 20 credits: Introduces students to fundamental analogue processes, tools, and techniques used in the expression and communication of design ideas.
• Design Visualisation - 20 credits: Introduces students to key graphic design software and principles, with an emphasis on the exploration of digital skills and processes.
• Design Enquiry - 20 credits: Focuses on research, asking students to produce graphic design work that draws on design theory and history for inspiration.
• Design Reflection - 20 credits: Encourages students to explore and engage with the world of graphic design, critically reflecting on their learning journey and potential career trajectory.
• Design Context - 20 credits: Challenges students to approach graphic design from a problem-solving perspective, factoring real-world issues into a design project.
• Design Experience - 20 credits: The culmination of the first year, where students work in teams to produce a comprehensive project that expands on all their learning so far.

Year two

• Design System - 20 credits: Pushes students to devise a commercially viable 'design system', providing continuity and commonality across a range of design assets.
• Design Interaction - 20 credits: Asks students to balance audience needs, behaviors, and motivations in the design of a fit-for-purpose app.
• Design Narrative - 20 credits: Allows students to explore the power of design to tell engaging stories, looking at editorial and web design as narrative mediums.
• Design Activism - 20 credits: Focuses on the practice of design-for-change, asking students to use online and offline channels to deliver compelling calls to action in service of a cause.
• Design Profession - 20 credits: Challenges students to further explore graphic design professional practice in team assignments for real clients.
• Design Specialism - 20 credits: Allows students to explore and interrogate a specialism of their choice from the broad spectrum of graphic design fields of professional practice.

Year three

• Design Agility - 20 credits: Draws on external national and/or international competition briefs for which students design and submit solutions.
• Design Identity - 20 credits: Picks up where the second year ended, advancing students' professional thinking and positioning.
• Design Experiment - 20 credits: Challenges students to redefine what graphic design can be and push the boundaries of the discipline.
• Design Adventure - 20 credits: Draws on an external national or international competition brief for which students design and submit solutions in a team.
• Design Showcase - 20 credits: Requires students to prepare, pitch, and develop ideas for their end-of-year graphic design showcase.
• Design Culture - 20 credits: Gives students space to demonstrate their intellectual prowess in the interrogation and debate of a graphic design idea related to their own practice and aspirations.

How you'll learn

The course prides itself on a holistic approach, exposing students to a wide range of graphic design contexts and outputs. Students will experiment and practice with materials, methods, and technologies as they learn about the creation, production, and distribution of design work.

Entry requirements

• UCAS points: 112
• A level: BBC
• GCSE: GCSE English at grade 4/C or Functional Skills Level 2, or other equivalent Level 2 awards.
• BTEC: DMM
• IB Diploma: 29 points
• Access to HE: The Access to HE Diploma. Plus GCSE English at grade 4/C or above.

Fees and funding

• UK students: £9,535 per year
• EU students: £9,535 per year with EU Support Bursary, £19,850 per year without EU Support Bursary
• International students: £19,850 per year

Facilities

The Delia Derbyshire building provides students with a range of facilities, including:

• Print-making workshops: Silk-screen printing, relief printing, and etching facilities.
• Letterpress workshop: Typesetting using authentic metal and wooden type, and printing on an original handpress.
• Software suites: The latest Adobe software, providing cutting-edge digital tools for design.

Careers and opportunities

The course aims to produce graduates who are flexible, responsive, and resilient, with the skills, competencies, and imaginative thinking necessary for a creative career in a demanding, competitive, and rapidly changing work environment.

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