Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Illustration

Illustrations are active images; they always have a purpose, making sense of complex ideas. As illustrators, students will work to enable understanding of the everyday - from enriching literature and poetry, to responding to societal issues from science and medicine to politics and economics. They will develop rich imaginative responses to build their unique practice, inviting their audiences in. With core skills in drawing and narrative students will explore and experiment with materials, developing a range of both technical skills to find their own visual languages with which to tackle challenging subject matter.

Through Cardiff Met's unique curriculum students will grow a practice that is defined in its purpose not only by how they make their work but importantly by what the work is about, and how it communicates, underpinned theoretically and historically.

Students will test their illustrations in a variety of environments and scenarios – exploring beyond the immediate world of the illustrator through, for example; animation, film, printed and digital media to contextualise and articulate their discipline, enriching their work with a greater understanding of the environment it operates in.

Illustration is constantly extending its reach. Whether it’s working with clients and collaborators or authoring and directing their own projects, students will graduate with a multitude of transferable skills.

Students in illustration will join the Vertical Studio where they will explore, examine and reveal the discipline through dynamic conversations, debates and presentations, unlocking the power of illustration.

The challenge is to understand and use visual trends in a critical way, whilst developing their own unique approaches – all while taking into account the power of images in a visually saturated world. Through the three years of study students will shape their own unique practice so that it speaks in a way that is inclusive of their audience.