London College of Communication

Course Details

BA (Hons) Illustration and Visual Media

Course Description

This studio-based course aims to produce creative and innovative illustrators who are equipped to succeed in roles across the industry. You will explore the design principles of contemporary media while learning valuable traditional skills and gain a broad and distinctive range of visual languages working with animation, computing, photography and printmaking. This new course capitalises on the heritage of graphic design education at LCC by acknowledging traditional values and specialist skills while recognising the changing and dynamic nature of design and illustration. Students have graduated from the course to work in a diverse range of creative companies, including: Alexander McQueen, Airside, Pentagram, John Brown Publishing, etc. Graduates from this degree have also set up their own companies, operated as freelance Illustrators and become exhibiting artists and designers. The BA (Hons) Illustration and Visual Media course at LCC seeks to challenge existing preconceptions and definitions of Illustration and encourages students to view themselves as thinkers as well as image makers. Taught by a team of practicing artists, designers, researchers and academics, all the tutors on your course are actively involved in scholarly investigation, graphic design and art related professional practice. The course fosters an understanding of contemporary creative practice, critical debate and scholarly responsibility. The course offers you the intellectual and creative space to examine existing definitions of illustration whilst exploring future directions. This enables students to work in a broad range of media, processes and techniques. Nothing is 'off limits'. Students are supported in negotiating individual routes of study in response to a series of set, live and self-initiated briefs. Emphasis is placed on developing a range of practical, conceptual, research and decision-making skills that are transferrable from the academic environment to the world of creative practice beyond university. LCC Illustrators make intelligent, well informed, critically-engaged work that goes beyond stylistic aesthetic concerns and graduate as self-motivated individuals equipped to shape the future of art and design practice. This course is taught within the School of Design at London College of Communication.

Course Duration

NumberDuration
3year

Career outcomes

Students have graduated to work in a diverse range of creative companies, including: Alexander McQueen, Airside, Pentagram, John Brown Publishing, Vault 49 (New York), Prologue (LA). etc. Students often set up their own companies, operating as freelance Illustrators, becoming exhibiting artists and designers. Given the breadth of the course you will not only learn new skills relating to image generation but also expand upon those that you may already possess. You will engage with a range of media from print to digital media and a variety of outputs including editorial design, sculpture and moving image. Illustrators no longer purely visualise content but provide the content, design it and market it. Therefore students on the course are introduced to aspects of design such as typography which not only allows you to add context to your illustrative work but also gives you a further range of skills relevant to progession into further study or work.




BA (Hons) Illustration and Visual Media London College of Communication