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Introduction
Design Crafts gives you the opportunity to learn the design and creative 3D-making skills you need to work professionally with glass, ceramics, and jewellery. Allowing you to discover your creative voice while developing traditional hand-making skills and contemporary approaches such as laser waterjet cutting and 3D printing.
The programme offers a diverse range of material and process practices, including ceramics, cold and kiln-formed glass processes, wood, metal, plastics, fibre glass and resins, textiles, jewellery, mould making, laser and waterjet cutting, CAD/CAM, 3D printing and scanning.
You will experience a comprehensive programme of hands-on workshop-based education, underpinned by contextual and historical studies, placements, internships and residencies.
This course will equip you with comprehensive knowledge, practical skills and innovative approaches to sustainable craft practices, developing critical awareness and resourcefulness to enable you to establish new responses in the evolving field of design crafts.
Delivered by a team of established craft practitioners with international reputations and supported by an experienced technical team, your experience will be further enhanced by the programme of visiting lecturers and practitioners. Entrepreneurial skills are embedded in the course.
Why choose this course?
1. Explore your passions for materials and making
2. Develop professional workshop skills and experience
3. Discover ways to develop and sustain a career that you love.
4. Enjoy your own desk space in a vibrant creative studio
5. Get your hands dirty!
Overview
The UK has a worldwide reputation for creative and innovative craft and design, with graduates from these sectors in high demand across a range of industries. Graduates from our Design Craft course will develop strong creative, problem-solving, design and making skills which can be applied to a wide range of employment opportunities, from self-employment (as independent artists, designers and makers) through to working for established companies in a variety of roles.
Entrepreneurism is embedded within the course, with wide-ranging discussions of the diverse approaches to developing and sustaining a creative practice as well as finding routes to employment within the immediate sector and beyond. This will be enhanced through regular lectures from visiting practicing makers and associated professionals.
Our team of established craft practitioners and experienced technicians will support the development of your creative ideas and designs throughout the course and introduce you to current innovations in materials and processes to ensure you have the most up-to-date skills and knowledge. In addition to permanent staff, students will benefit from ongoing engagement with a variety of visiting artists, alumni and lecturers.
The Design Crafts Course boasts a broad range of specialist making facilities, supported by a comprehensive array of general workshops.
First-year modules are designed to establish a core platform of essential skills for all students and encourage the development of design and making in glass, ceramics and jewellery:
• Contextual Practices to develop and enrich the student’s knowledge of design and craft.
• Design and Make modules that develop 2D and 3D drawing and visual literacy through materials.
• Professional Practice to gain core skills in digital portfolios and online presence.
• Material workshops to build the student’s skills in working with glass, ceramics and other materials.
• Design and material knowledge to provide an understanding of design and craft.
Second-year students develop the knowledge, practical abilities and creativity to undertake design and craft artefact realisation. They are able to work as an individual designer, maker or as part of a multidisciplinary team for the manufacture of design crafts. During this year students experience ‘live briefs’ and client-based scenarios.
Third-year modules are designed to allow students to formulate their own individual career direction and aspirations as a design crafts graduate. Students select and manage their own personal and major projects with the support of the staff team so that they can demonstrate their core skills and experience and develop:
• Advanced knowledge of design crafts, thinking and practice.
• A personal design philosophy to underpin their current and future practice.
• Advanced awareness of the value of their intellectual and creative ability and a well-defined strategy for personal brand and career development.
Third-year students prepare for their launch into the graduate marketplace with the support from the universities Research, Innovation and Enterprise Services.
Modules
Year One – Level 4 (Cert HE, Dip HE, BA)
• Contemporary Challenges: Making a Difference (20 credits; compulsory; Graduate Attributes Framework module)
• Design & Make 1 (20 credits; compulsory)
• Design & Make 2 (20 credits; compulsory)
• Introduction to Casting (20 credits; compulsory)
• Learning in the Digital Era (20 credits; compulsory; Graduate Attributes Framework module)
• Ways of Perceiving (10 credits; compulsory)
• Ways of Thinking (10 credits; compulsory)
Year Two – Level 5 (Dip HE, BA)
• Advanced Material Practice (10 credits; compulsory)
• Advanced Material Finishing (10 credits; compulsory)
• Changemakers: Building your Personal Brand for Sustainable Employment (20 credits; compulsory; Graduate Attributes Framework module)
• Changemakers: Creativity and Value Creation (20 credits; compulsory; Graduate Attributes Framework module)
• Design & Make 3 (20 credits; compulsory)
• Design & Make 4 (20 credits; compulsory)
• International Independent Study (60 credits; optional)
• Research in Context (10 credits; compulsory)
• Research in Practice (10 credits; compulsory).
Year Three – Level 6 (BA)
• Advanced Creative Enquiry (20 credits; compulsory)
• Independent Professional Placement (60 credits; optional)
• Independent Project (40 credits; compulsory; Graduate Attributes Framework module)
• Individual Major Project (60 credits; compulsory)
• International Independent Study (60 credits; optional).
Entry Criteria
We are interested in creative people that demonstrate a strong commitment to art and/or design and therefore we welcome applications from individuals from a wide range of backgrounds. To assess student suitability for their chosen course we arrange interviews for all applicants at which your skills, achievements and life experience will be considered as well as your portfolio of work.
Our standard offer for a degree course is 120 UCAS tariff points. We expect applicants to have a grade C or above in English Language (or Welsh) at GCSE level, together with passes in another four subjects. Plus we accept a range of Level 3 qualifications including:
• Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, plus one GCE A-Level in a relevant academic subject
• Three GCE A-Levels or equivalent
• BTEC Extended Diploma in a relevant subject, with minimum grades of Merit
• International Baccalaureate score of 32
• Other relevant qualifications can be considered on an individual basis
Qualifications are important, however, our offers are not solely based on academic results. If you don’t have the required UCAS points, we can also consider offers from applicants based on individual merit, exceptional work, and/or practical experience.
ENTRY REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
Home Office Share Code
For EU students only.
IF no Qualification
Please provide CV with at least 2 years of work experience, and employee reference letter
Assessment
ASSESSMENT METHODS
1. INTERNAL ENGLISH TEST if you don't have an English accredited certificate
2. Academic Interview
Assessment
The three main modes of assessment used on this programme are:
Studio Projects – work undertaken to fulfil the demands of a given or student generated brief. Projects are set to examine the student’s abilities to master the integration of new design principles and skills to his / her design practice. Studio projects may be set and take place in a variety of forms and over a range of durations, and include activity within the glass workshops, CAD studios as well as traditional design studios. Students may be required to present a variety of types of work for assessment such as; portfolios, sketchbooks and project journals, presentation boards, three-dimensional models, material samples and artefacts.
Written Assignments – work is undertaken by the student in his/her own time. Written assignments may take the form of an illustrated paper or report. In both cases, the student is expected to demonstrate critical insight and proficiency in articulating the results of practice or research-based assignment.
Seminar Presentations – this form of assessment requires the student to demonstrate conceptual understanding and evaluate the rigour and validity of published research. Seminars may take the form of individual and/or group presentations to peers and other professional groups.
Career Opportunities
Swansea College of Art has a long and successful record of producing graduates of the highest professional calibre in the fields of art and design.
Possible career pathways have included:
• Establishing yourself as an artist, designer or maker.
• Setting up a studio as a sole supplier or in a partnership with others
• Employed in specialist glass, ceramic or jewellery studios
• Engaging in freelance work on architectural and interiors projects
• Designing for industry or working in the glass, ceramics and jewellery industries.
• Working on private and public commissions
• Working on art projects and community projects
• Other opportunities include arts administration, curating, teaching and mentoring, community work and arts editorial.
• Continuation of studies to postgraduate level on our MA programme.
• Further academic research leading to MPhil, or PhD is available.
Graduates may naturally be involved in a broad range of these opportunities and increasingly graduates enter employment in the wider creative industries sector where the design thinking and project management skills developed on the course come to the fore. The Professional Development module is designed to enable final year students to develop their external profile and prepare for professional practice.
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