Illustration Animation BA (Hons)

Why choose this course? 

• No. 1 in london and top 5 in the uk for graphic design in the guardian university guide 2025 (covers graphic design and illustration animation). 
• The Illustration Animation BA (Hons) - the UK's first degree in Illustration Animation - at Kingston School of Art combines narrative and time-based subjects to give the undergraduate complete creative freedom to engage in visual thinking, expression and communication.
• Illustration has expanded from the traditional printed page to explore many forms of visual media including digital objects and interaction, spaces and environments. Animation as a time-based medium allows exploration from traditional to hybrid domains like film and television, and virtual and augmented reality.
• We celebrate the cross-pollination of ideas and skills through the hybrid nature of the course. You'll benefit from dedicated studio spaces and the opportunity for collaboration between illustration and animation.
• Built around drawing, the course is carefully structured to develop your individual voice, applying content to image communication to reach an audience.
• We encourage learning through making and you will have access to all workshops to test and prototype using any process from etching to ceramics, arc welding to laser cutting, and 3D printing or large-scale textile printing.
• The course includes self-initiated and group work assignments and presentations encouraged through self-reflective and critical discourse, individual practice is built and tested by peer group interaction. This breadth ensures students develop the range of skills essential to contemporary practice in all forms of applied image making.
• Projects with industry, cultural and social institutions test and shape student understanding in real-world situations. Staff practitioners and alumni networks offer insight and contacts with international creative practice, including studio visits and placements.
• The course has an excellent reputation for nurturing graduates who go on to be leading practitioners in illustration and animation, as well as design, direction and a broad range of creative careers.

Reasons to choose Kingston

• We're ranked No.1 in London and Top 5 in the UK (The Guardian University Guide 2025) within the Graphic Design subject area.
• 84% of students from this course were in highly skilled employment or further study within 15 months of graduating (Graduate Outcomes Survey 2018).
• This course produces top graduates who go on to work at the best creative agencies and companies globally, such as Cartoon Network, Nexus, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Blink, Moth Studio and Google.

The Art School Experience

• As part of Kingston School of Art, students on this course benefit from joining a creative community where collaborative working and critical practice are encouraged.
• Our workshops and studios are open to all disciplines, enabling students and staff to work together, share ideas and explore multi-disciplinary making.

What you will study

• Throughout the course you'll gain an understanding of text, image, narrative and sequence. We build strong observational skills through drawing as a basis for your development and equip you with the necessary techniques to realise your creative ambition.

Modules
Each level is made up of four modules each worth 30 credit points. Typically, a student must complete 120 credits at each level.

Year 1

• Year 1 encourages an open-minded and exploratory approach to illustration animation. You'll be introduced to idea development, visual research, and image and content relationships. Drawing, animation, digital crafts, presentation techniques, life drawing and location workshops are all taught.

There is an optional field trip to destinations such as New York, Berlin or Florence. Eligible students will be supported with a travel bursary.

• Core modules
• Studio: Introductory Principles
• Process: Materials and Methods
• Presentation: Collaboration and Communication
• Image & Text - Communication Design History for Illustration and Animation

Year 2

Year 2 enables you to explore different ways of communicating your ideas. You'll learn how to critically challenge subjects and develop your personal direction. You'll work on set and self-initiated projects, developing your ability to create effective solutions.

• Core modules
• Process: Technologies and Application
• Presentation: Audience and Context
• Studio: Practice and Purpose
• Critical Issues in Illustration and Animation: Research and Practice

Year 3

Year 3 focuses on the development and resolution of a personal practice, with an awareness of professional contexts. A series of set and live assignments will inform your self-initiated extended project. Helping you with your individual presentation will be industry research and engagement combined with web, portfolio, showreel and curatorial workshops.

• Core modules
• Studio: Practice and Realisation
• Presentation: Professional Practice
• Dissertation: Research and Reflection

Optional Year

• You'll have the opportunity to study for a fourth year abroad or to do a work placement, or even combine both.

Future Skills
Knowledge to give you the edge

• Embedded within every course curriculum and throughout the whole Kingston experience, Future Skills will play a role in shaping you to become a future-proof graduate, providing you with the skills most valued by employers such as problem-solving, digital competency, and adaptability.
• As you progress through your degree, you'll learn to navigate, explore and apply these graduate skills, learning to demonstrate and articulate to employers how future skills give you the edge.
• At Kingston University, we're not just keeping up with change, we're creating it.

Teaching and assessment

• Scheduled learning and teaching on this course includes timetabled activities including lectures, seminars and small group tutorials.
• It may also include critiques, project work, studio practice and performance, digital labs, workshops, and placements.

Facilities

• You'll use your studio spaces and facilities to experiment and explore new ways to push the boundaries of projects and open discourse across disciplines.
• Collaborative and multi-disciplinary teamwork is actively encouraged between students, across faculty courses, international institutions and with industry.
• Throughout the course, you'll be encouraged to explore and develop expertise in current approaches, techniques, media, sustainability and application including communication, narrative, interactive, information, animation and moving image, and environment.
• Skills and techniques such as drawing, visualising, moving image, printmaking, rapid proto-typing, analysis and research, human factors, presentation all support project work by helping realise solution-led ideas.

After you graduate
Careers and progression 

• Our graduates are employed worldwide in roles such as freelance illustration and image makers for magazines and newspapers; book publishers; film and TV production companies; and by advertising and design groups.
• Some pursue careers in animation, games, multimedia, special effects and design for film and TV; others pursue postgraduate study in the UK or overseas.
• Exceptional achievements by Kingston School of Art students mean our students enjoy a reputation for innovation and creativity. Achievements include awards from BAFTA, Design and Art Direction Student Awards, the Macmillan Prize, the Penguin Student Design Award, the World Illustration Awards and the Royal Television Society Awards.

Examples of recent graduate destinations 
Illustration Animation graduates have gone on to the following roles:

• 3D artist 
• Advertising art director 
• Animator 
• Artist 
• Artist freelance 
• Advertising campaign planner 
• Design manager 
• Gallery coordinator 
• Graphic designer 
• Illustrator 
• Landscape artist 
• Marketer 
• Printmaker 
• Production assistant 
• Publishing assistant 
• Visual artist  
• Employers 

Illustration Animation graduates have been employed by the following organisations:

• Accessorize 
• BBC
• Central Academy of Fine Arts
• Disney UK
• Financial Times
• Foster + Partners 
• GMTV
• Haymarket Media Group UK
• London Print Studio
• Media.com 
• OKIDO magazine 
• Oxford Press 
• Paul Holland 
• Sony Computer Entertainment Europe 
• The Walt Disney Company Ltd 
• Tussauds Studios
• Wimbledon School of Art