Program Overview

BA (Hons) Graphic Design

The BA (Hons) Graphic Design course at Manchester Metropolitan University offers a hands-on, ideas-focussed experience where students learn various approaches to visual communication, using both traditional and new technologies in workshops and projects.

Course Overview

The graphic design discipline has grown to include branding, motion graphics, user experience (UX), user interface (UI), and digital design, all rooted in creative problem-solving. The curriculum encourages students to explore freely without being tied to specific software and develops their understanding of how to design for different platforms and formats.

Features and Benefits

• Globally recognised: Ranked in the top 100 schools for art and design in the world (QS World Rankings 2024).
• Live projects: Regular live projects with industry partners throughout the course, where students can gain professional skills.
• Work placement: The course offers a work placement opportunity between years two and three.
• Collaboration: Students take part in an innovative module offered to students across Manchester School of Art, which encourages interdisciplinary study, collaboration, and external-facing projects.
• Design competitions: Students' successes include awards in regional, national, and international arenas.
• Study trips: Opportunities to undertake study trips to key design cities.
• Studio visits: Options to attend studio visits in Manchester and London across a range of graphic design practices.
• Mentoring scheme: Students are given an opportunity to be matched with an industry mentor.

Year 1

In Year 1, students are introduced to the studio-based culture of the course through a series of design projects encouraging the development of ideas, experimentation with visual language, and acquisition of technical skills. This is supported by a contextual programme that places practical elements into a wider cultural, critical, and social context.

Core Modules

• Visual Thinking: A practical introduction to graphic design that outlines the fundamental concepts, methods, and tools underpinning the culture of the programme.
• Future X: Kinship: Explores creative fields through questions of belonging, encouraging consideration of relationships with the planet, people, and place.
• Graphic Attitudes: Examines the fundamental relationship between text, image, ideas, and visual realisation, exploring the importance of a defined audience in the creative design process.
• Storytelling, Sequence, and Narrative: Develops skills in telling stories through image making, photography, typography, or motion, understanding how to depict a sequence of events within a design.

Year 2

In Year 2, students study more specific areas of graphic design practice, encouraged to take risks and experiment, gaining knowledge of professional practice and designing for a specific audience.

Core Modules

• Disruptive Practice: Develops creative visual thinking by exploring notions of the unconventional, encouraging a questioning approach to graphic design work.
• Future X: Symbiosis: Tackles complex planetary challenges by working with students from different creative fields, exploring the notion of ‘What if?’ to propose alternative futures.
• Visual Persuasion: Explores the impact of external factors on graphic design practice and how designers must respond to these by adapting their processes and platforms.
• Professional Context: Develops understanding of the professional graphic design industry, promoting engagement with external partners to foster appreciation of designing for a specific audience and context.

Year 3

In Year 3, students develop a professional portfolio that reflects their individual career aspirations, with opportunities to enter national and international competitions, professional assessment schemes, and live projects.

Core Modules

• Design Directions: Helps develop a personal route that relates to knowledge base, skill set, and individual career aspirations.
• Future X: Re-worlding: Explores the boundaries of where the discipline intersects with other fields of practice as a catalyst for innovation.
• Creative Voice: Presents the opportunity to work on personal and professional graphic design projects that explore real-world problems in a professional context, developing a personal approach to building an exit portfolio.

Entry Requirements

• Typical offer: 104-112 UCAS tariff points.
• IELTS score: 6.0 overall with no individual element below 5.5.
• Portfolio: A portfolio of work is required as part of the application.
• UK students: Level 3 qualifications, including GCE A levels, Pearson BTEC National Extended Diploma, Access to HE Diploma, UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma, OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma, and T levels are considered.
• International students: IB Diploma with minimum 26 points overall or 104 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects, and IELTS 6.0 overall with no individual element below 5.5.

Fees and Funding

Tuition fees for the 2026/27 academic year are still being finalised. Information on 2025/26 standard undergraduate fees for UK/Channel Islands and EU/Non-EU international students is available.

Careers Support and Prospects

• Employed or in further study: 88.7% of UK-domiciled, full-time, first-degree graduates are employed or in further study 15 months after graduation.
• Career paths: Graduates have gone on to work as designers in studios, design consultancies, and in-house teams for industry, in roles such as branding, magazine and publication design, art direction, and digital media design.

Related Courses

• BA (Hons) Fashion Art Direction
• BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation

Disclaimers

• Programme review: Programmes undergo annual and major reviews to ensure an up-to-date curriculum.
• Important notice: The online prospectus provides an overview of programmes of study and the University, and is regularly updated.
• Confirmation of regulator: The Manchester Metropolitan University is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS).