Illustration BA (Hons)

This unit provides you with a dynamic exploration of the fundamentals of illustration, such as observational drawing, mark-making, print, collage, and multi-media processes. You will learn about the ‘interpretation’ of subject matter from text and concepts into developed illustrations. You will explore observational, life-drawing, and location drawing, investigating perspective, depth of field, composition, scale, colour, and mark-making. You will be encouraged to experiment with your image-making including collage, assemblage, layering, text and image, and printmaking. Our technical workshops will explore digital drawing skills, tools, and software. You’ll be introduced to how illustration is used in industry and applied in different contexts.

40 credits

This unit will encourage you to explore and experiment with a range of techniques, materials, and media. Through project work and workshops, you will explore a range of subject-specific technical and practical skills, including relief printing, digital drawing, layout, and bookbinding. You will experiment with storytelling through visual narrative and sequential design, interpreting text into storyboards. Through our design workshops and activities, you’ll explore the relationship between text, typography, image, and page layout design. You’ll study contemporary and historical illustration practices and develop knowledge and the application of global approaches to fundamental design principles used within contemporary illustration practices.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

This unit will enable you to develop and advance your specialist knowledge and skills. You will consider a variety of contexts and audiences for your work, and how it is situated within a global context. The unit also supports you in making considered decisions about your future career through engagement with industry, such as competition entry and working with live briefs. Technical workshops will develop your digital and analogue skills and you will prepare for employment opportunities by developing self-promotional material, such as a CV and online presence. This unit will also explore the creative and cultural economy, and contemporary issues such as sustainability and how illustration can raise awareness.

80 credits

This unit focuses on helping you understand your practice in a wider context through collaboration and interdisciplinary working. Through active participation and working in collaboration with external partners or students from other courses, you will use creative ideas to generate solutions to a live brief. This collaborative learning experience will expose you to a range of new processes and approaches that will develop your creative thinking and decision making. Working with a range of production, print, and display methods, you will explore the process of exchanging ideas, establishing roles and responsibilities, team working, project planning, project management, and professional pitches and presentations.

40 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

This is the first and shorter of the two units that make up your final year of study. Your work will include briefs, both set and self-initiated, including competition briefs set by established professional bodies, as well as ‘live’ client’ briefs set by industry partners and practitioners. As you advance your practice, you will be involved in studio, academic, and technical workshops, including type and image, visual identity, narrative, sequential, and print/digital design. The unit allows you to identify, investigate, and plan a self-determined, critical research project, culminating in a 5,000-word written report. You’ll apply various research methods and methodological approaches, informed by your approach to your creative practice and future career aspirations.

40 credits

Your final unit allows you to create a bespoke professional portfolio developed from your final year projects and aligned to your personal and professional goals. Your research will inform your developing ideas and resolved outcomes in relation to the wider context of contemporary illustration practice, theory, techniques, and ideas, you have explored in previous units. Career development planning and academic workshops will focus on your social media presence, self-promotion, portfolio design, and digital presence. These study areas will combine your subject specialist and industry knowledge with your creative vision to produce a resolved and professional body of practice, so that you are industry-ready once you graduate.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.