Overview
Our MA Visual Communication programme encourages the development of an individual and distinctive contemporary graphics practice through considered engagement with current contexts, audiences and outputs, giving you influence in society and helping you shape our way of living and our understanding of the world.
This programme brings together design-led and research-driven approaches to an increasingly important practice and field of study. We take a critically informed and widely experimental approach to the production, form and circulation of ‘message’.
The programme is ideas-driven, and devised to assist you in developing your unique approach within the broad field of contemporary communication-led practices, including graphic design, advertising, packaging design, branding, and more.
You will engage in design thinking and research centred projects, and develop visual literacies through iterative design. Through your work, you will develop a critical framework that will enable you to take on complex ideas and respond to commercial demands.
The programme addresses areas of information design, work motivated by social needs, local, national and global contexts, and commercial propositions. You will develop a critical understanding of your subject by testing and evaluating contemporary and professional approaches.
At your disposal are superbly resourced workshops and studios, allowing you to experiment with a range of techniques and a combination of processes, from letterpress, laser cutting, animation, photography and screen printing, to the latest software suites.
This environment encourages you to explore the ever-changing technological landscape and time-tested processes of print and image generation that are essential to all types of visual communication.
Careers & Alumni
Alumni of our Graduate School pursue careers in the fields of fine art, craft and design, as practising artists, teachers, curators, and as gallery, theatre and technical professionals. Others go on to prepare for doctoral study, and set up viable projects as socially engaged and community-based practitioners.
Our programmes offer professional skills development to support our students as they progress within industry, self-employment (in the Creative Industries sector) and further Level 7 and 8 studies. The second module offers an opportunity to test out the practices being investigated by individual students within an appropriate, live setting.
September 2025
Arts University Plymouth
Tavistock Place,
Plymouth,
PL4 8AT, England
*There may be different IELTS requirements depending on your chosen course.