Bachelor of Arts - Graphic Design (Honours) (with placement year)

The sandwich Graphic Design route adds a salaried studio year between the taught levels, extending the degree to four years while the taught programme mirrors the standard course through typography, identity, editorial, packaging and digital work.

A placement year converts student projects into professional practice: working to client feedback rather than tutor critique, handling artwork and production files to press standards, managing multiple briefs against commercial deadlines, and absorbing the studio etiquette that graduate recruiters immediately notice.

Applicants should understand what a design placement actually involves before romanticising it: substantial production work, artwork amends, presentation preparation and studio support alongside the creative tasks — and that production experience is precisely what makes placement returners employable, because studios need juniors who can execute reliably, not only conceptualise. The faculty’s creative placement network spans regional studios, in-house teams and London agencies, with applications running through the second year at the standard £17,300 taught-year fee across the three recorded September cycles, and the reduced placement-year charge confirmed through the usual offer process.

Students return with commercial work for their portfolios — the strongest possible answer to the perennial junior-designer problem of having only self-set projects to show — and with the professional references that studios weigh when a dozen portfolios look equally competent.

Placement pay of roughly £17,000–£20,000 pro rata offsets much of the extra year, and host studios frequently retain placement designers as juniors. The four-year timeline completes inside the 18-month Graduate Route regime for post-2026 applications, with dependants excluded on taught study for the duration.