Graphic Design
Graphic design is the practice of visual communication, using image, typography, colour, and layout to convey ideas, information, and identities across print, screen, and spatial media. It is a discipline that sits at the intersection of art and language, requiring both aesthetic sensitivity and an understanding of how audiences read and respond to visual material. Graphic designers shape how we experience everything from packaging and publications to websites and brand identities, and the field continues to evolve as new technologies and platforms create new possibilities and demands.
At the University of Kent, this part-time degree develops your core graphic design skills across a range of disciplines including typography, image-making, editorial design, user experience and interface design, and motion graphics. You will also have the freedom to explore emerging trends and techniques, engaging with areas of practice that are defining the direction of the field. The part-time structure allows you to balance your studies with other commitments, making the degree accessible to those who are already working in creative or related roles, or who have existing responsibilities that make full-time study difficult.
You will build a body of work that demonstrates your conceptual thinking and technical execution, learning to take a brief from idea through to realised outcome. Critical analysis of design history and theory runs alongside studio practice, giving you a framework for understanding the choices you make and the conventions you choose to work with or against. You will develop the professional skills of a working designer, including presentation, collaboration, and the management of creative projects.
Graduates from graphic design programmes work as graphic designers, brand designers, art directors, UX designers, motion designers, and typographers, in agencies, studios, in-house creative teams, and as freelancers. The versatility of the discipline means that design skills are applicable across publishing, advertising, digital media, film, television, education, and the cultural sector. Postgraduate study in design or a specialist area is an option for those who want to develop their practice further.