Illustration (with Professional Practice Year) - BA (Hons)

University for the Creative Arts

BA (Hons) Illustration with Professional Practice Year is a four-year degree programme, in year three you undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV. Learn the language of illustration and find your visual voice. Experiment, explore, play, and take risks in studios where ideas are tested through material practice and critical thinking. You’ll work with long‑established techniques as well as emerging technologies, building a practice that shifts easily between approaches and continually redefines what illustration can be. This is illustration taught as a dynamic, materially exploratory, and conceptually rigorous discipline – shaped by the creative possibilities that happen when methods and ideas collide. You'll have the chance to work on live briefs for brands like Toyota, Netflix, and Hallmark, and enter competitions including the Penguin Design Awards and the Folio Society, and have your portfolio reviewed by creative agents who work with emerging illustrators. These industry connections inform the curriculum and are designed to help you build confidence, experience and a developing professional voice as you progress through the degree. By the time you graduate, you'll have a distinctive visual voice, a portfolio that spans editorial, narrative, children's books, brand work – and the creative confidence to go freelance, get signed by an agency, or carve out a practice entirely your own.