Bachelor of Arts - Illustration with Graphic Design (Honours)

BA (Hons) Illustration with Graphic Design builds image-making on a design foundation: drawing and visual narrative, print and digital illustration techniques, character and editorial work, combined with typography, layout and identity skills so that graduates can design as well as illustrate.

The hybrid is deliberate and commercially shrewd — illustrators who can typeset, lay out and art-direct their own work win commissions that pure image-makers cannot, and they remain employable in studio roles when freelance commissions thin, which is the discipline’s most common failure point.

For international students in particular the design half of this degree is the practical safeguard: illustration commissions rarely arrive fast enough to sustain a graduate through their first UK year, whereas studio and artworking roles hire continuously and can be held while a commission practice builds slowly alongside. Counselling should present that sequencing as the normal path rather than a compromise. September entries run across the three recorded cycles at the £17,300 fee, with print and materials costs additional across all three years of studio practice.

Studio teaching runs through live briefs, competitions and self-initiated projects, with print facilities supporting screen-print, risograph and traditional processes alongside digital workflows, and the final year devoted to a portfolio and self-promotional strategy aimed at the markets each student targets.

Income patterns are mixed — commissions, licensing, part-time studio work — with employed junior roles at £20,000–£25,000 and freelance rates varying widely by sector. The honours award qualifies for the Graduate Route at the 18-month post-2026 term, and dependants are excluded on taught undergraduate study throughout.