Illustration and Animation MA

at Coventry University

Why you should you study this course
 

• Coventry School of Art and Design has taught art and design for over 150 years and our award-winning faculty will share the lessons learned from their significant experience of global academic, creative, industrial and commercial environments. We have a successful track record including Oscar nominee Chris Townsend, BAFTA winner Amy Dodd and Turner Prize nominee artist George Shaw.

• Internationally acclaimed for their own creative practice, our faculty staff have exhibited in Berlin, Athens, Helsinki, Bucharest, Istanbul, Tokyo, Linz, Zurich, Zagreb, Gijon and London (staff are subject to change). This course provides illustrative and animated input into many areas of professional practice including the publishing, scientific, technical, marketing, publicity and advertising, medical and cultural arenas; all of which provide opportunities to help you stay abreast of emerging trends and the challenges of contemporary professional practice.

• This practice-based course provides opportunities to develop a broad range of traditional and digital skills, including drawing, etching, screen-printing, typography, film effects, and working with sound; all using industry-standard practices and toolsets.

• Your studies will take place in a studio environment with access to our range of specialist facilities, including laser cutters, 3D rapid prototyping, screen printing, computer suites and clay modelling to enable you to produce original informative artefacts4. We encourage you to creatively explore emergent and mixed media, considering these art forms in their broadest application: from films and games design to advertising, training videos and technical illustrations as used in science, engineering and medicine.

What you'll study

Through practical exploration and reflection of digital and traditionally physical forms you will develop an appropriate synergy between practice and theory, establishing your specialist signature of work. Your final project will be tailored to your own area of professional practice and your personal creative passion, culminating with an exhibition of your work in the end-of-year MA Degree Show.

Year one
 

Through practical exploration and reflection of digital and traditionally physical forms you will develop an appropriate synergy between practice and theory, establishing your specialist signature of work. Your final project will be tailored to your own area of professional practice and your personal creative passion, culminating with an exhibition of your work in the end-of-year MA Degree Show.
 

Modules
 

• Collaboration in Practice 1 - 30 credits

  This module explores the nature and definitions of research in art, architecture and design-based disciplines. Students are introduced to interdisciplinary research methods and ethical practices from a range of perspectives.
   

  Compulsory
  
  Illustration and Animation Specialism 1 - 30 credits

• This module aims to engage the students with the concept of time as a creative element. Students will be asked to address and to include temporal aspects of visual imagery within their project work. The nature of time as a viewing space throughout history, and as related to scientific and philosophical discussion, will be considered relative to creative artefacts that are filmic, literal and pictorial.
   

  Compulsory

• Final Project Plan 2 - 10 credits

  This module allows you to develop a Final Project Plan. Research itself is taken to be a wide-ranging activity that includes visual, social, cultural and factual information gathering as well as investigating the potential practical outcome of your project.
   

  Compulsory

• Professional Context 2 - 20 credits

  This module asks students to consider the professional contexts of their discipline. It explores the ways in which creativity, innovation, problem-solving and entrepreneurship intersect in creative practice. It employs real-world examples to enable student to think about their professional practice, employability, portfolio development and approaches to communication.
   

  Compulsory

• Illustration and Animation Specialism 2 - 30 credits

  This module aims to engage the students with the concept of space, location, process and visualisation as creative elements. Students will be asked to address, to include, and to visualise aspects of the above within their project work. Relationships across physical, conceptual, personal and virtual spaces will be explored.
   

  Compulsory

• Global Professional Development- Entrepreneurship 3 - 10 credits

  The aim of this CMI accredited module1 is to give students the opportunity to critically assess entrepreneurship and to consider the skills required to become an entrepreneur in a range of contexts. Students will normally have the opportunity to work with students from other disciplines and or workplace settings, to facilitate an appreciation of entrepreneurship in different sectors and how they can learn and adopt or adapt solutions from other fields.
   

  Compulsory

• Illustration and Animation Specialist Investigation 3 - 20 credits

  This module requires students to implement the first part of the plan defined in the module 'Final Project Plan'. The outcome will be a personal project brief or initial creative directions inspired by the data, discourse or analysis.
   

  Compulsory

• Illustration and Animation Final Project - 30 credits

  Within this module students encounter the opportunity to employ all previously acquired techniques and methodologies in the creation of a final project production that allows for personal and professional decision making, critical reflection and direction.
   

  Compulsory
   

With professional experience option
 

The professional experience opportunity2 enables you the opportunity to apply for optional professional experience in semester 1, which, upon successfully securing an opportunity, will extend the duration of your master’s to either 16, 20 or 24 months. The professional experience provides an opportunity for you to develop expertise and experience in your chosen field with the aim of enhancing your employability.
 

Please note that the optional professional experience modules incur an additional tuition fee, which for 1 semester of professional experience is £1,333.33, for 2 semesters of professional experience is £2,666.67, and for 3 semesters of professional experience is £4,000.

 

Professional experience may also be subject to additional costs, visa requirements being met, subject to availability and/or competitive application. Professional experience opportunities are not guaranteed but you will benefit from the support of our Talent Team in trying to find and secure an opportunity. Find out more about the professional experience option.
 

We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated.
 

How you'll learn
 

Teaching methods include:

• Lectures

• Seminars

• Tutorials

• Presentations

• Group projects

• Workshops

• Practical laboratory sessions
   

This course can be offered on a part-time basis. Whilst we would like to give you all the information about our part-time offering here, it is tailored for each course each year depending on the number of part-time applicants. Therefore, the part-time teaching arrangements vary. Request further information about part-time study.
 

Teaching contact hours

Part of university life is undertaking self-directed learning. Across the course of the week you will have non ‘taught’ time that allows you to work independently to apply the skills you have learnt in taught or facilitated sessions to your projects or assignment briefs. This is particularly important in the school of art and design as it allows you to put into practice making in workshop and studio spaces.
 

This self-directed learning allows you to monitor and self-evaluate your development and how best to manage this time to best impact your creative work. SDL is key to designing and making as it is a process that takes discipline and repetition. This mode of learning under pins our community of practice approach.
 

A third of your time will be taken up with facilitated sessions whether that is group, seminar, lecture, 1-2-1’s and in the remaining 24 hours you will be applying that knowledge to your on going assignments. Every student is different and manage workloads differently so this can vary across students and times of year.
 

The contact hours may be made up of a combination of face-to-face teaching, individual and group tutorials, and online classes and tutorials.
 

As an innovative and enterprising institution, the University may seek to utilise emerging technologies within the student experience. For all courses (whether on-campus, blended, or distance learning), the University may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via online technologies and methods.
 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are prepared for courses due to start in or after the 2022/2023 academic year to be delivered in a variety of forms. The form of delivery will be determined in accordance with Government and Public Health guidance. Whether on campus or online, our key priority is staff and student safety.
 

Assessment
 

This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which will vary depending upon the module.

Assessment methods include:

• Group work

• Presentations

• Portfolio

• Projects

• Coursework

• Individual Assignments
   

The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards achieving the intended learning outcomes.

Applicants should ideally hold a good honours Degree 2:2 or above (or its international equivalent) in a Graphics/ Design discipline.
No portfolio will be required if the academic qualifications in the subject area as define above are met.

If a portfolio is required it should feature a maximum of approximately 10-15 examples of work or 3-4 projects undertaken within the past 2 years, 3 or 4 of which should be major, substantial, in-depth projects which demonstrate ability to conceptualise solutions to creative problems, and to assimilate and combine written language or content with the visual. This will clearly demonstrate the level of creative, craft and production skills achieved, either in a previous course of study or in a professional design studio, as a freelance designer or during an internship.

Projects should ideally accompanied by a brief summary of the work or projects, notes on the software used, and dated. As a graphic designer a genuine, demonstrable interest in typography and good typographic skills is required beyond the basic level.

English language requirements
 

• IELTS: 6.5 overall, with no component lower than 5.5. 

International Fees

£16,950 | £19,350 (with prof. experience) per year
 

International Pathways 2022 Scholarship

You could enjoy a £3,000 reduction in tuition fees.
Our high-quality foundation, international year one and pre-masters courses are for international students who do not meet the requirements for direct entry to their preferred Coventry University undergraduate or postgraduate course. We can support you to achieve the academic and/or English grades you need and help you gain the personal and professional skills required to study at university.

We want to encourage ambitious international students like you to study at Coventry University, so we’ve secured extra financial support for you worth £3,000, to help with the cost of tuition fees, living expenses and accommodation.

The scholarship application deadline is:
September 2022 intake: 31 July 2022

Upon successful completion, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate through practice, an advanced understanding of the creative production of animation and illustration genres.
• Analyse problems of a creative nature and provide appropriate solutions.
• Describe, interpret and evaluate artefacts, artworks, designs and events from a range of critical perspectives, taking account of the context of their production, consumption and critical positioning.
• Research and synthesise information to make presentations.
• Prepare a working brief in keeping with the creative business practices associated with the field.
• Apply with a high degree of confidence and mastery the conceptual and practical elements of hybrid techniques as appropriate.
• Participate in, and engage with practice surrounding new and traditional media.
• Engage creatively when applying differing and various media and techniques in the pursuit of a successful answer to client/brief requirements.
• Engage with the needs of a client which aids both client and practitioner to create a successful brief.
   

National and international graduate career prospects are many and varied and include education, curation, film and television, games disciplines, print and publishing, animation, film, scientific and technical illustration, storyboarding and character generation in 2D and 3D for traditional and emergent media.

We help you develop a wide range of transferrable skills associated with the use of information gathering, communication technology, professional practice, time management, project management and self-promotion. This could open up career opportunities that include education, television production and web-based media. You may also wish to continue your studies at PhD level or to establish a freelance business.