Curious about studying Entertainment Design - BA (Hons)at Birmingham City University? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Margaret Street
Full Time
Sep 2026
3 Year
We all want to be entertained — but what if you could be the one who designs the magic? From film sets to festivals, live events to immersive worlds, BA (Hons) Entertainment Design puts you centre stage in shaping unforgettable experiences. Our BA (Hons) Entertainment Design course prepares you to work across the dynamic and fast-growing entertainment industry where creativity meets experience. The scope and opportunities in entertainment design are boundless. Whether it’s immersive theatre, theme parks, music festivals, museum exhibitions, escape rooms, film sets, interactive installations, brand activations, a live event or digital environment, entertainment designers are the creative minds behind the scenes who design the spaces, narratives, atmospheres, and interactions that bring all these experiences and more to life. Rooted in a rich legacy of performance design at BCU, the BA (Hons) Entertainment Design degree builds on the decades of experience we have gained in creative practice while preparing you for where the industry is heading next. You’ll explore what entertainment can be, and how you can shape it.
What's covered in this course?This is a doing course. You’ll design, prototype, make, test, present, and refine. Every module offers a balance between developing academic knowledge, building technical skills, and harnessing creative autonomy, so you can develop a practice that’s both grounded and ambitious. You’ll work with the core principles of entertainment design — storytelling, space, figure, and audience — and learn how they interact to create impactful experiences. You’ll also develop your own direction through research, studio practice, collaboration, and critical reflection. Throughout the course, you’ll engage with industry-informed briefs and real-world challenges using emerging tools and technologies, while also exploring sustainable design practices and the ethical use of AI to ensure your work is both innovative and responsible. Our affiliation with creative professionals ensures that you’re learning is relevant—and what you create makes you industry-ready. Informed by sector leading organisations such as the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Blackhurst and Co, Katapult, Scruffy Dog Creative Group, Digbeth Loc. Studios, and Boomtown Festival, you'll have the opportunity to gain invaluable exposure to the creative processes, expectations, and innovations driving the entertainment design industry.
In this module, you will begin your journey into the world of entertainment design by exploring the four foundational principles that will shape your entire degree: storytelling, space, figure, and audience. You’ll investigate how these principles operate across different entertainment contexts through research, observation, and hands-on experimentation. Each principle will be addressed individually through focused tasks and thematic exercises, allowing you to explore storytelling, space, figure, and audience in isolation before understanding how they interrelate.
In this module, you’ll build a hands-on understanding of how tools, techniques, and materials can be used to shape meaning in entertainment design. You’ll experiment with a range of analogue and digital processes—drawing, sculpting, modelling, fabrication, digital creation, and emerging tools such as artificial intelligence (AI)—so you can begin forming a personal toolkit of creative approaches.
This module is where things start to collide—in the best possible way. You’ll explore what happens when the four guiding principles of entertainment design—storytelling, space, figure, and audience—interact. Rather than treating these principles in isolation, you’ll experiment with how they combine, intersect, overlap, and even challenge each other.
This module invites you to pause, reflect, and ask an essential question: Who are you designing for, and why does it matter? As your first year in entertainment design progresses, you’ll begin to consider your own values, creative instincts, and areas of curiosity. This module is designed to help you step back from practice and investigate where your interests might be pointing you.
In this module, you’ll build on your foundational understanding of the four core principles—storytelling, space, figure, and audience—by exploring how they work together to create meaningful experiences. This is where you begin to discover what makes an experience resonate emotionally, socially, or intellectually with an audience.
In this module, you’ll refine how you communicate your ideas—visually, verbally, digitally, and physically. As a designer in the entertainment industry, it’s not enough to have great ideas—you need to present them clearly, compellingly, and professionally to a variety of audiences, including clients, collaborators, and end users.
This module is designed to help you explore and clarify where your creative practice is heading. Building on your skills, experiences, and emerging interests from Level 4 and early Level 5, you’ll undertake a sustained enquiry into your personal design direction within the entertainment industry.
In this module, you’ll take your technical, material, and creative skills to the next level by refining the tools and techniques that define your personal and professional design practice. This is your opportunity to push beyond what you already know, focusing on excellence, innovation, critical thinking, and synthesis.
In this module, you will develop the intellectual and creative foundation for your final major project, The Intersection: Resolved. It’s your opportunity to define, investigate, and articulate a personal line of enquiry that will shape the work you create in your final semester.
This is your final and most ambitious project—the culmination of your work across the course. In this module, you will produce a significant creative output that demonstrates your vision, values, and contribution to the future of entertainment design. This project should be informed by the research, insights, and design direction developed in the Framing Direction module, enabling you to build on a strong foundation of contextual and conceptual understanding.
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