You will have opportunities to take part in placements, live projects, seminars with guest speakers and benefit from our connections within the illustration, film, television and animation industry!

Recent guest speakers from our Illustration & Animation department include:

• Atomhawk Design
• Curtis Jobling (designer of Bob the Builder)
• Howard Reed (Little Howard’s Big Question, CBBC)
• Tim Searle(former Head of Animation at Beano Studios)
• RubyETC (illustrator)

Your portfolio is a visual statement it says a lot about an applicant and their practice. The advice below is not meant to be restrictive but rather offers some simple advice to help you prepare for your interview.

What we like to see
Examples of finished design work presented to a good standard. Work-in-progress pieces including developmental drawing, design thinking, alternative ideas, solutions and proposals. The portfolio should indicate an interest in animation and illustration.

Please include work such as:
• Photography
• Drawing
• Illustration
• Painting
• 3D Work (can be photographed)
• Animation
• Short Stories and/or Poetry
• Web Design and Blogging
• Other on-line presence (design and visual arts related)
e.g. Instagram, DeviantArt, Flickr, Behance, etc.

Digital Work
You can also include film/animation/ interactive work. If so, please make sure that you provide correctly formatted files and that the work can be played/showed on Mac computers. Alternatively bring your own laptop or tablet.

Our students benefit from working in dedicated professional spaces that will allow you to develop and grow your practice properly. Including regular contact time and easy access to our resources. With state of the art technology, studios, print rooms, computer suites and a staff body of working practitioners you will learn the skills needed to start your career in the competitive creative industry properly.

The creative industry contributes a large amount to the countries economy and with industries such as digital design growing at such a fast speed, opportunities are continuously developing. The number of reported jobs in 2019 stood at around 2.1 million in the UK which is a 3.0% increase since 2018. If you want to know more about what you can do with a creative degree, you can find out on our creative careers page.