Year 1
The units offered in your first year of study will provide you with a wide range of design techniques and principles, ensuring that you develop a solid base in understanding design as a creative discipline.
With units ranging from learning how to learn and exploring what the Design School has to offer to gaining core concepts in design for climate justice, you’ll gain a solid grounding in not only how to communicate visually, but also how to begin developing your own approaches to climate action and activism.
Introduction to Design for Climate Justice (20 credits)
This unit will introduce you to study at higher education level and foundational ideas from your chosen course.
Design School Explorations (40 credits)
This School-level unit will introduce you to the full range of topics available for study in the Design School, and will further . contextualise the work undertaken in the Introduction To unit.
Principles (40 credits)
You’ll explore core concepts, practices and ideas from your chosen course, situating them within relevant cultural, historical and theoretical contexts.
Responsible Design (20 credits)
In this School-level unit, you’ll address key questions around ethics, and social and climate justice.
Year 2
The second year of your course offers an element of optionality, which will encourage you to engage in experimentation.
Building on the knowledge and skillsets gained in your first year of study, you’ll have an opportunity to widen the scope of your course subject by choosing to explore diverse design practice methodologies or subject areas. You might also choose to deepen your understanding of climate justice by through units focused on climate activism, designing with nature, or visual storytelling for climate and social impact.
Options units (40 and 20 credits x2)
You will undertake one 40 and one 20 credit unit per block from a range of options available at School-level. Options may be developed by course teams, individual tutors, combination teams, or other groupings such as research hubs, centres, or even external parties.
Year 3
In the third year of your studies, you’ll develop your specialism by focusing on design for climate justice. By exploring process and realisation, you’ll focus on what it means to design with nature and consider how to visually communicate narratives of balance, indigenous ways of knowing or the importance of communities in addressing climate emergency.
You’ll be encouraged to consider the relationship between visual communication and its impact on the real world through concepts such as mitigation, reparation and adaptation. At the same time, you’ll be invited to develop your own voice as a climate advocate to shape communities of creative practice that explore questions of power, sources of knowledge, and engage in the process of decolonising and decarbonisation.
In this final year of the course, you’ll have an opportunity to self-direct a project that ultimately showcases your voice and call to action for climate justice.
Process Portfolio (40 and 20 credits)
In this unit, you’ll take one 40- and one 20-credit unit from a single course available in the School. Here, the focus is on ‘the Process’, and you’ll be required to demonstrate contextual understanding and the ability to manage skills and resources to produce a substantial creative project.
Realisation Portfolio (60 credits)
You’ll take one 60-credit unit from a single course available in the Design School. In this unit, the emphasis is on ‘the Realisation’, with a focus on the production of a self-directed creative work to a professional standard.
Optional Diploma between Years 2 and 3
Between Years 2 and 3 of your course, you’ll also have the opportunity to undertake one of the following qualifications:
Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) (Optional)
An optional, year-long learning opportunity which enables you to develop your professional skills by undertaking time out for industry experience. Supported throughout the year by academics, you’ll build on the knowledge gained on your course in a range of national or international locations, and graduate with an additional qualification of Diploma in Professional Studies.
Diploma in Creative Computing (Optional)
Between Years 2 and 3, you can undertake the year-long Diploma in Creative Computing. This will develop your skills in creative computing alongside your degree. After successfully completing the diploma and your undergraduate degree, you’ll graduate with an enhanced degree: BA (Hons) Design for Climate Justice (with Creative Computing).
