Communication Design MA
1 Year Full-Time | September Start

Communications Design at Northumbria employs a studio-based learning by doing approach, drawing on your existing design skills. It champions an interdisciplinary approach drawing on expertise, methods and experience of staff from a range of areas such as co-design, user experience, brand innovation, data-driven visualisations, service design, AI, information design and visual storytelling.

Reflecting the integrated nature of communications design as a discipline, the course consists of three broad modules which offer a flexible and transformative learning experience:

Stage 1 ‘Situate’ During this exploratory phase you will work on set briefs to explore various themes and practices. The emphasis is on experimentation within a context of narrative, identity, promotion experience and service.

Stage 2 ‘Challenge’ The visionary phase will expose you to inspirational pioneers of change. Through live collaborative projects and the development of your self-directed brief, you will seek to challenge the status quo and set a new direction for your practice. 

Stage 3 ‘Change’ Working with increasing independence, you will realise your final self-directed project and demonstrate how you have achieved your intended impact. Your final project should be engaged with the real world and have a collaborative element, and can be international in scope.

In Stages 2 and 3, you can choose the briefs and themes that inspire you, giving you a unique opportunity to make a positive impact on a social, environmental or economic area you’re truly passionate about. These could be as diverse as sustainability, new technology, ageing, social inequality or access to education.

This coming year we will continue to offer our new students a range of projects that will challenge your creativity and encourage your growth in expertise as a designer. We will expect you to undertake about eight projects in your year with us, which will form your Masters level design portfolio. These will expand your horizons, shape you as a designer and build your confidence as a valuable creative professional.  

The teaching staff at Northumbria School of Design have a remarkable international reputation. They are carrying out cutting-edge research in established and emerging areas of design, and many are respected practitioners as well as theorists. 

In the fast-paced and ever-changing world of design, openness to learning new ideas and interdisciplinary is key to your future success. Therefore, we are pleased to offer you a diverse range of staff to learn from, who collectively have expertise in many design disciplines and important areas of design research to share. 

Similarly, we know how valuable it is to work alongside fellow students who you can also learn from too, so we encourage creative individuals to apply with a variety of backgrounds: In 2020/21 we had students who had previously studied Graphic Design, UX/UI Design, Animation, Fine Art and Computer Science.

You will interact with staff in various ways – some will lead thematic sessions and supervise projects within those themes, others will offer skills workshops in their areas of expertise. For your final project you’ll be supported by your own dedicated advisor, whose area of expertise will be matched to your chosen area of inquiry. Staff are available to support you throughout the year, as part of our engaged and collaborative design community.

This course offers a unique opportunity to learn from the best across a wide range of areas, and you can explore some of the staff who may be teaching you below.

Northumbria School of Design provides first-class teaching in a world-class environment. You will have a dedicated studio space, located near our undergraduate communication design programmes. You will have access to a range of workshops including letterpress, screen printing,virtual reality suite and prototyping lab.

The vast majority of your work will be undertaken in a collaborative studio environment, but we have the facilities to support whatever type of creative expression you choose for your final project. The fact that everything you need is situated within close proximity to the technical facilities offers a practical advantage over other universities, as well as a strong sense of community and source of constant inspiration.

The University has invested heavily in technology and you will have access to industry-standard creative software within labs and across multiple open access study areas. Our course uses Technology Enhanced Learning(TEL) to give you the flexibility to choose the pace, place and mode of learning that suits your style of thinking, learning, doing and making. You'll have access to an elearning portal which offers discussion groups, access to video recorded tutorials and lectures, and interactive training programs.

You’ll also have 24/7 access to the University Library,which achieves some of the highest levels of student satisfaction in the UK. It has held the Cabinet Office accreditation for Customer Service Excellence since 2010.

You will be immersed in research-rich learning from the outset of your studies. 

The course champions an interdisciplinary approach drawing on staff research in areas such as co-design, user experience, brand innovation, data-driven visualisations, service design, AI, information design and visual storytelling. You will have the opportunity to work on live briefs as part of the University’s Ideate research theme, collaborating with academics at the forefront of their discipline.

We have recently worked with NE1, a regional business development company, on an important funded research project. The project encouraged students to design speculative solutions that helped people living with HIV to manage their online identity and security.  

You will develop your own skills as a researcher, learning to critically reflect on your own and others work, challenge your own thinking, and justify your own work in the context of wider theories and practice.

You will graduate from this course with independence of thought, maturity of thought articulation and an aptitude for collaboration – traits highly valued by every employer in the creative marketplace.

Northumbria is based in the heart of Newcastle – a thriving creative capital, with a vibrant and growing digital industries sector. It is an ideal city in which to study and launch your creative career, with a much cheaper cost of living than London.

The course has been developed in consultation with industry,and you will engage with practitioners throughout your studies, through live briefs, guest masterclasses and networking opportunities. As such it provides you with the experience, portfolio and contacts which form an ideal basis for advanced professional employment.

We have in the past run collaborative briefs with creative agencies such as Wieden and Kennedy, R/GA and Us Two, multinationals such as Virgin Money, Sage and Microsoft and voluntary sector organisations such as The Cyrenians, Newcastle Vision Support and Fulfilling Lives.

Upon graduation you’ll be ready for employment,entrepreneurship or doctoral research within areas as diverse as graphic design, interaction design, UX design, service design, product innovation, art direction, branding, publishing and information design.