BA (Hons) Graphic Design

"Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, examinations may be replaced by an alternative form of assessment during the academic year 2021/2022. Please refer to the Programme Specification on these pages for further details."

Why choose this course?

Creativity, craft, and community. If you’re looking for a career where you’ll never stop exploring, experimenting, and creating a positive impact on the world around you, graphic design could be the one for you.

Our course is your chance to dive into a world of contemporary design, try incredible techniques, and make lifelong friendships with like-minded creatives. It’s a career launchpad like no other – and it’s taken our graduates to some pretty impressive places. If you love expressing yourself visually, testing out new processes, making work that makes people go ‘wow’, and learning from the best – this course could be right up your street.

What are the facilities like?

Amazing. Learn in our vibrant, dedicated studio spaces and Mac labs. Do your research in our 24/7 library. Craft something unique in our screen-printing, bookbinding, and hackspaces. And try your hand at new techniques in our 3D design and laser-cutting workshops.

What's the course about?

You’ll spend your first year immersed in our studio, getting a solid grounding in print and digital projects, working alongside our Illustration students. You’ll be constantly challenged, supported, and encouraged as you learn technical skills, experiment, take risks and push new boundaries. If you’re also considering our Illustration degree, you can explore both and easily swap between the two in the first three months.

You’ll begin by learning the understated power of typography, logo design, brand identity, and layout – fundamentals that will underpin your craft, whatever direction you take. With them under your belt, at the end of the year, you’ll have the option of continuing on a pure Graphic Design pathway or switching to our Graphic Design: Advertising and Branding degree.

Your second year is a dynamic mixture of personal experimentation, balanced with a more professional focus. Regular sessions encourage you to develop your own visual style; whilst workshops teach more advanced software skills as well as a variety of printing techniques, collaborations with the other pathways, and an international study trip. The year is also about working on live briefs with some of the world’s highest-profile design agencies and developing your portfolio and building a CV. There’s the chance to explore everything today’s tech has to offer, crafting your website, building your social media profile, and creating a unique narrative that shows top design employers what an amazing designer you are. Throughout the course, we’ll help you to investigate, understand and critique the history of the subject, the theories behind what’s happening in contemporary design as well as looking into future trends.

Work placement/study abroad option : Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s absolutely fine too.

By the time you start your final year , you’ll have a solid understanding of design and the specialisms that fire your imagination. You’ll pick from a huge range of creative projects, workshops, and live briefs as well as developing your own self-directed projects — building a completely personal, standout portfolio. We’ll encourage original thinking, but we’ll also give you tons of support, inspiration, and encouragement.

And we won’t be the only ones. Throughout your course, we’ll invite amazing designers to lead workshops, set projects, and become your mentors. Our proximity to London means it’s easy for us to invite people doing the most innovative and exciting work with us.

It’s a powerful mix of freedom, inspiration, and support that prepares you for an incredible career. In fact, in recent years it’s earned our student's award wins in all the most coveted competitions including D&AD yellow pencils, Creative Conscience Gold medals, and I.S.T.D. awards. So, join our community and turn your creativity into a career you love. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be next.

Your main campus is College Lane

This is where the creative arts, science, and health-related subjects are based. This means you’ll share the campus with future nurses, scientists, artists, and more. You can use the common rooms to relax with friends, work out in the 24-hour gym or have a drink in our on-campus pub or cafes. We also have restaurants for you to eat in or grab something on the go. Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.

This course includes the options of:

• Work placement
• Study abroad

At the University of Hertfordshire, we see your potential, we hear your ambitions and we support your futures. From the moment we meet, we will set you on a path to achieving your goals. We will drive you forward, we will actively guide you every step of the way. You may not be confident or you may have questions – but we believe in you and we will help you find the answers. You may have a goal that you want to achieve – we can help focus you. You may want an experience – we can get you some. Here at Herts, there are many pathways to success, so let us empower your future, and take you all the way. This is your platform, your opportunity to succeed – so what are you waiting for?

Prepare to succeed

Show employers what you’re made of. We’re big on placements – and for good reason. Research tells us that over 70% of employers prefer students with work experience. That’s because placements aren’t just an excellent way to put what you’ve learnt into practice, they also show employers what you’re like as a person – with all those attributes like ambition, teamwork and a can-do attitude. To make sure our students get that work experience advantage, we’ve developed strong links with businesses and organisations here and internationally. These have allowed us to build valuable placement opportunities, from short-term experience to full-year paid placements, into many of our courses. What’s more, you won’t have to pay fees during the year you’re on placement.

Passport to success

Many students at Hertfordshire have the chance to study or work overseas – for a semester, a summer or even a whole year. Studying or working abroad is a great way to immerse yourself in a new culture, broaden your horizons and create many unforgettable memories. We have partnerships with many universities across the world, including in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Africa, China, Korea, Japan, Australia, and across Europe. The cost of living in many countries is lower than in the UK and you’ll still be eligible for any grants or loans you’d get if you were studying here. Most students also pay no tuition fees during the year away and may be eligible for one of our scholarships to help with living and travelling costs.

Learn from the best

We like to think our teaching is a little different. Not only are our academics experts in their respective fields, but everything they teach is shaped by businesses and industry, giving you the subject-specific and transferable skills for an exciting career. Alongside your core subject, you’ll also be able to pick up other qualifications to help you stand out to employers. From mentoring to Microsoft qualifications, City & Guilds awards to getting your pilot’s licence, there’s a tonne of ways to build an impressive CV.

Key Facts

• TEF Gold : Our teaching is among the best in the UK.
• 170 : Study abroad at one of over 170 universities in 40 countries around the world.
• National Rankings : 4th Economics 7th Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management 10th Engineering: Electronic and Electrical.
• Number 1 for Games : TIGA Games Industry Award 2019.
• 96.5% of students in employment or further study within 6 months.
• Award-winning : Employment mock assessment centre simulation (Institute of Student Employers).
• Career enhancing experience : Our students have undertaken placements at companies including KPMG, Tesla Motors (UK), Microsoft and GSK.

Learning and teaching

Whatever your background, wherever you are from, we believe that higher education can be a transformational experience.

We develop graduates who are capable, creative and enterprising. Through engaging with employers and professional bodies who contribute to the development of our curriculum and our status as one of only 20 University Enterprise Zones, we transform the lives of our students.

We offer the flexibility, opportunity and community students need to succeed. We achieve this by:

combining traditional teaching methods with digital resources including our online student network, StudyNet teaching courses that are designed with the input of business and professional bodies giving students the chance to learn about employability through listening to the experience of our alumni organising networking events where staff, students and graduates can meet offering a vibrant multicultural campus by increasing the proportion of international students on campus giving students the option of studying at one of our partner universities overseas supporting students in their learning and living offering students valuable work experience in research, business or industry before their final academic year.

Vision

Our vision is to transform lives. This means whatever your background, wherever you are from, we will drive your potential, powering you to succeed.

We are committed to having a positive transformational impact on every member of our university community, and to share our successes with the community around us.

Our strategy

We support a diverse range of students, staff, businesses, researchers and members of the community. What they all share is the desire to make the most of the opportunities in front of them. Our strategy will enable us to power their potential and achieve their goals.

Students, businesses and the local community are all motivated by the same thing. Finding ways to make the most of the opportunities in front of them, by tapping into their individual or collective potential. Powering Potential is embedded in our philosophy. This means – to transform lives, we not only find potential, but we also harness it and drive it.

Key strategic themes

Students, businesses and the local community are all motivated by the same thing. Finding ways to make the most of the opportunities in front of them, by tapping into their individual or collective potential. Powering Potential is embedded in our philosophy. This means – to transform lives, we not only find potential, but we also harness it and drive it.

Offering opportunity

We offer every student the opportunity to succeed, with varied and well-signposted routes into university and clear pathways through study. We support students to achieve to the best of their ability and will support them in preparing for global opportunities after graduation. We will use our links in business, our research expertise, and our global outlook, to transform lives.

Building community

We are a diverse and welcoming community with a global reach and a common purpose, to transform lives, which we will work together to achieve. Through communities of learning, exploration and knowledge, we celebrate diversity and share our passions. We want all our students and staff to find their communities here. We are engaged as a Civic University in our region, supporting schools, colleges and students. We will share our knowledge, culture, research and resources with businesses, the professions and the wider community.

Embracing flexibility

We will respond flexibly to the challenges and opportunities ahead. Flexible modes of study will support our students to succeed and allow them to engage with a greater range of opportunities in education, extra-curricular activities and work experience. We want our students to follow their interests and passions to transform their lives and to be empowered by a choice of pathways that take them to the next stage and open doors to the future.

Our values

We provide opportunities to attract, retain and develop individuals. We are building a diverse and inclusive community and we respond with flexibility to the challenges of the changing world. Our values underpin everything we do. We are friendly, ambitious, collegiate, enterprising and student-focussed.