Course General Description

Contemporary illustration practice has grown to encompass a broad range of ambitions and opportunities for image makers and storytellers. The growth of online digital cultures - and the impact of digital image creation on traditional image making - requires flexible and adaptable practitioners, and it provides unique opportunities for the entrepreneurial illustrator. Our course offers you the chance to challenge the boundaries of illustration, both in its practice and its context, and is primarily concerned with the illustrated narrative. It offers you a creative and intellectual environment in which you can rigorously pursue a project of self-directed study, and produce a body of work on a topic of your interest within the field of illustration. Our course enjoys a long tradition of original narrative and storytelling through images, reflecting staff expertise and practice in these areas. As a student here you'll get to explore narrative storytelling, authorship, self-publishing, book production and visual narratives through the development of a personal project.

School General Description

The origin of the University for the Creative Arts lies in the establishment of various small art schools in the English counties of Kent and Surrey in the nineteenth century. In Kent the first of these was Maidstone College of Art, founded in 1867, and in Surrey the Guildford School of Art, founded in 1856. During the second half of the twentieth century many of these small art schools merged, eventually forming Kent Institute of Art & Design in 1987, and Surrey Institute of Art & Design in 1995. These two organisations joined forces in 2005 to become the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester. In May 2008 the University College for Creative Arts was granted full university status by the Privy Council, and adopted its current name, the University for the Creative Arts, officially in September 2008.