Illustration and Visual Media

Illustration has always occupied a fascinating position in the visual arts, combining storytelling, image-making and communication in ways that range from intimate hand-drawn work to large-scale digital production. Visual media extends this further, asking how images, moving or still, function across platforms, contexts and audiences. Together they form a practice-based discipline that equips you not only to make compelling work but to understand how visual language shapes meaning and culture.

At University of the Arts London you will spend three years developing your practice across a full-time programme that includes a sandwich year, giving you structured industry experience alongside your studies. You will work with a broad range of media and techniques, building a personal visual language while also engaging critically with the history and theory of illustration and image-making. The course places significant emphasis on professional contexts, and through your placement year and work placement opportunities you will develop an understanding of how illustration and visual media operate commercially, editorially, and in publishing, animation, advertising, and beyond.

Crit sessions, collaborative projects and engagement with a lively creative community in London will sharpen both your making and your thinking.

The careers open to graduates are varied. Many work as freelance illustrators, taking commissions for editorial publications, book publishers, advertising agencies and digital platforms. Others move into animation, motion graphics, art direction or graphic design.

Visual media skills translate well into roles in content creation, film and television, and user experience design. Some graduates pursue further study at postgraduate level, deepening specialist practice or moving into research. The breadth of the programme at UAL means you graduate with both a strong portfolio and the critical awareness needed to sustain a practice across a changing media landscape.