Illustration BA(Hons)

In the first year of your Illustration degree, you’ll be supported to explore, question and disrupt new processes and practices. Through project briefs, workshops, collaborative projects, lectures and presentations, you’ll be introduced to a range of creative processes: from critical thinking to practical hands-on skills across different mediums. You also begin to engage with a wider industry context, connecting with art directors, publishers, designers, advertising agencies, illustration agencies and freelance illustrators. 

Modules

Visual Problem Solving

You’ll explore a broad range of visual problem-solving strategies and develop analytical and project management skills through a series of practical projects and contextual lectures. 

Practice & Purpose 

Through a set of project briefs, you’ll investigate how illustration operates within the industry and how it communicates with audiences. You’ll also be encouraged to develop an informed practice, considering ethical and inclusive ideas. 

Media & Methods 

You’ll continue to 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 

In this module, you’ll focus on the contexts of narrative illustration and deepen your understanding of how to communicate inclusively to a range of audiences.   

Exciting briefs, workshops, lectures and presentations will introduce you to in-depth learning that includes a growing awareness of audience, refining practical skills, critical research, project management, history and theory and collaborative practice. Working both independently and in groups, you’ll also embrace challenging subjects and explore the environment around us to investigate how illustration can be used to inform and implement change. 

As you progress through this stage of the Illustration degree, you’ll begin to develop your own self-initiated projects as well as a range of collaborations. As more industry facing experiences begin to be introduced through live briefs and lectures, you’ll be challenged to question convention, disrupt, innovate and maintain risk and courageous thinking throughout. 

Modules

Refine & Apply 

You'll experiment with a range of established and emerging technologies and undertake reflective and analytical research to refine your visual language.  

You’ll also build on your visual communication skills through a broad range of illustrative contexts, platforms and applications. 

Challenging Subjects 

You’ll explore illustration as a vehicle for communicating change and developing tools for improving equality, diversity, inclusivity and sustainability. 

Introduce & Negotiate  

In this module, you’ll begin to develop your first independent negotiated practice project, through which you’ll relate to key contexts in contemporary illustration practice to enable you to test both conceptual and visual language skills gained in the early phase of the course. The diagnostic nature of the module will enable you to make decisions about the future direction that your work takes. 

Collaboration

This module focuses on a range of collaboration skills, allowing you to develop and utilise them through working as part of a collaborative team both outside and inside your disciplinary studies.

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme, or after your third year if you’re studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the Employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your placement year 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

The final year allows you to refine your approach and to test and challenge your emerging fields of interest, culminating in a final digital portfolio of work and an industry feedback contextual report.  

The modules are designed to help you define your creative future beyond the Illustration course. You’ll continue to build core skills while reflecting critically on your strengths and exploring alternative models of practice. 

Modules

Define & Realise 

Through ongoing visual and intellectual experimentation and a process of critical analysis, you’ll work towards the development of an authentic visual language. 

Research & Extend 

You’ll engage with an extended programme of independent research on a subject that supports your illustration practice. You’ll then produce a written report. 

Connect & Transition 

In this module, you’ll develop your Final Major Project. This is an independent body of work, utilising appropriate processes defined by your strengths and interests within the field of illustration.  

You’ll demonstrate your intellectual, technical and self-reflective skills while showcasing an emerging authentic visual language that connects and communicates with industry. 

Professional Practice 

This module is designed to equip you with the necessary skills to operate within your chosen career path. You’ll gain insights into the breadth of the creative industries and a deeper knowledge of professional practice.  

Why study an Integrated Foundation Year route? 

If you’re taking on a new subject that you haven’t studied in depth before, have been out of education for a while or have a non-standard educational background then an Integrated Foundation Year degree may be the right choice for you. It is a four-year degree with an Integrated Foundation Year to start, which allows you to explore the primary elements of your subject before progressing on to the remaining three years of the BA(Hons) degree. 

What you'll study in your Foundation year

If you choose this pathway, you'll study five core modules in your Foundation year. These are all designed to help you explore the foundational elements of your subject. You'll gain relevant technical skills, learn to experiment and take risks, develop an understanding of professional practice, have opportunities to work across disciplines and collaborate with other students on live project briefs. 

Modules

Explore

You'll begin your foundation year by working collaboratively with others to explore themes of the future. You'll take risks, experiment through play and be supported to break through barriers.

Technique

You'll take subject-specific workshops and develop essential technical and practical skills in your area of study. You'll also enhance your analytical and organisational abilities.

Apply

You'll work with your peer group to think beyond discipline by addressing a societal or global issue. You'll then showcase your work to your peers and deliver and accompanying evaluation of your process.

Industry

You'll enhance your creative and practical skills in your subject specialism by responding to typical industry briefs, underpinned by focused research and experiments. You'll also gain industry insights through guest lectures and workshops.

Launch

You'll develop your unique identity in your specialism through the production of a self-initiated body of work. Your final project will be the bridge to your next year, fully supported by evaluative reviews and critical analysis of the work you have created.

After the Foundation year, you progress into Year One of the full three-year degree, equipped with a deeper knowledge of your subject, a clear understanding of your strengths, and develop a practical and technical skillset and the confidence to excel in your chosen subject. 

If you apply for and enrol onto a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year, you’ll have the option to switch onto a five-year version including a placement year. That means you’ll complete the first three years of your course before completing a placement in industry in your fourth year and returning to Falmouth for the fifth year of your programme. 

The Integrated Foundation Year pathway for this course is subject to validation.

This Illustration degree balances creativity with professional practice. You'll gain hands-on knowledge and experience through project work, live briefs and client meetings. Supporting this will be lectures, seminars, group crits, workshops, one-to-one tutorials and optional placements or industry visits. 

Our visiting speaker series has seen our students learn from Dave McKean, Noma Bar, Laura Carlin, Sam Arthur(Nobrow), Sue Coe, Paul Slater, Sara Fanelli, Russell Cobb, Graham Rawle, Matthew Richardson, Posy Simmonds, Jason Ford, Kai & Sunny, Owen Davey, Harriet Lee Merrion, Vivian Schwarz, Olivier Kugler and John Vernon Lord. 

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

100% of your assessment will be coursework. 

Assessment methods

Assessment will take place at the end of each semester, and you'll get feedback and evaluation throughout the year. You'll be assessed through visual, verbal and written assignments, including your portfolio, as well as a research proposal.

If you choose the Integrated Foundation Year pathway for this course, all assessments within your foundation year will be 100% coursework based.