Creative and Cultural Industries: Art Direction BA (Hons)

30 credits

This module enables students to create a critical, historical, ethical and theoretical framework within which to investigate and understand practices of creativity in relation to art, design and culture.

The module explores the connections between creativity and social and cultural change by focusing on a variety of case studies both historical and contemporary. It will place emphasis on the ways in which significant moments in cultural history, and the creative products and solutions that emerge from them, have been shaped by the input of multiple stakeholders who inhabit a variety of positions from artists and designers to muses, theoreticians, patrons and engineers. The module will examine ethical issues that emerge around cultural and creative practices and theory.

With a close focus on analysis of key case studies, a series of lectures, seminars, workshops, and tutorials will support students' own emerging research interests and encourage the development of their historical knowledge, critical thinking and research skills.

The module thus helps students to make sense of the ethical concerns emerging in their own disciplines and to take a critical and analytical view of their own ideas, motivations and interests and how these views can translate into commercial project work.

The module will actively engage with visual and physical material. Seminars will also enable students to discuss key readings, and connect themes to their particular interests. Where possible, study visits, guest speakers, hacks, and screenings will be scheduled throughout the module.

As students progress they will be able to translate their concepts into outputs across video, music, social media content and reacting to theoretical content as and how their creative interests take them.

30 credits

This module will introduce you to Future Skills through engagement with Navigate. It will enable you to begin to develop your professional identity and global citizenship, by promoting your understanding of ethical issues and values, design thinking, and commercial awareness. These concepts and associated activities will support you to plan your own personal and professional development, as a means of developing your creative practice. This will be supported through active engagement with Navigate, and through personal development planning (supported by Personal Tutors), which will enable you to reflect upon your Future Skills graduate attributes. It will also enable you to reflect on and begin to evidence your understanding of the skills you are developing holistically; through all the work you are creating as part of your course.

You will learn to write in professional contexts (writing to industry figures via email or LinkedIn messaging), creating your own profile on networking sites. The module will focus on writing in number of professional contexts and you will practise using a range of techniques and strategies to produce professional documents.

Through the creation of a Podcast you will explore industry sectors and roles and issues around Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and begin engaging with industry figures and bodies, learn how to interview, record and create engaging audio stories and begin to define your own place in the Creative Industries.

30 credits

This module builds the skills and understanding needed to create and deliver effective visual and verbal communications. Students will be introduced to theories on perception and communication and will apply them to the analysis of persuasive visuals used in visual communications. Students are simultaneously introduced to a fundamental set of conceptual and practical tools.

Practical project tasks will give students the opportunity to develop or enhance their industry standard software skills, supported by our technicians. Through the creation of visual concepts, video narratives, content creation for social and experimentation with emerging platforms, students will explain the possible visual identities of an event, campaign, or product. Students will learn to examine and redefine problems through close observation and investigate the use of empathy with users. User experience, interface design and prototyping are used to enhance the quality of communication and the explanation and sharing of ideas.

A basic understanding of image creation, editing and outputting via industry standard software students, supported by technicians in the Digital Media Workstation. Emphasis is not placed on the technical execution of visual outcomes (layout, designs, social media content, posters) but on the relevance to the brief, effectiveness and originality. Students will be encouraged to select appropriate media to support their visual stories so they could use a range of 2D/3D work (graphic, video, photo, illustration) or VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), XR (Mixed Reality) and other immersive and emerging technologies depending on the skill and interests of the student.

30 credits

This module explores different types of writing (academic, commercial, creative) and how the meaning and form is changed depending on the chosen audience. The mechanics of writing (drafting, editing) are paired with briefs that explore your ability to write reflectively about your creative work, to write commercially (copywriting, editorial), to bring writing into your creative practice (stories, poetry) and how to use prompts and conversational text to inform Artificially Intelligent creative tools. You will explore the ethics surrounding the use of these technologies and issues around copyright and plagiarism that arise from the use of these technologies.

This module is designed to familiarise students with a range of rhetorical strategies, aesthetic techniques, redrafting and editing skills, while also providing the opportunity to practise writing and editing in a number of commercial, creative and academic forms. You will be introduced to key techniques for writing effectively and will develop your ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in writing by reading and responding creatively to texts in each form.

This module focuses on writing techniques that will be explored through workshops and lectures. The impact that language choices make on the effectiveness of writing will lead on to the discussion of audience, social context, identity and voice.

30 credits

This module is intended to establish the importance of the customer or end user during the production of your creative work. This is not necessarily a given as when work includes aesthetic, craft or technical codes, values and stakeholders there can be powerful alternative interests and requirements. Creative producers need to balance, determine possible areas of trade-off and occasionally deny or defend against commercial or cultural considerations. This module therefore problematises the cultural consumer, investigates their needs and behaviours, and analyses and discovers how (interactive) communication can be established with them, including consideration of ethical practices within the sector. A multi-channel perspective will be adopted with particular emphasis on digital consumer decision journeys and the creation of social media brand advocates.

30 credits

This module introduces you to the principles and practices of project management. You will have had some limited experience of working in projects during the Design Thinking (HA4303) module and will be able to use this as recognition of the need and benefits to developing skills in this aspect of creative professional practice. Much work in the Creative Industries is organised in projects and many creatives work as freelancers or in small agencies operating in a project based manner. Project management involves the identification and organisation of resources, aligning them to milestones and objectives so that at the completion of the project the outcome is valued by the client and the project team generates a return on their effort. While it is the case that creative projects share similar characteristics to those intended to be run by methodologies such as Prince2, they are also different. The module explores this difference and aims at providing an approach and encouraging attitudes to their organisation that will enable creative projects to be better managed.

30 credits

This module provides you with an opportunity to apply your developing understanding of creative problem solving to real-world examples of problem conceptualisation, research and solution design. It will draw on the skills and problem solving techniques developed in the Visual Narrative and Design Thinking (HA4301) modules and the Creative Project Management (HA5305) module. Its main objective is to create a situation requiring professional level of interaction and the application of creative and design skills to the creation of a solution. This will prepare you for when you need to create and sell ideas into companies either for an agency or as a freelancer. Cases will be selected according to their relevance to each degree. Two scenarios are expected. One, the case will involve aspects of each degree and can be tackled by all students. Two, separate cases will be found to match each degree. Each organisation will bring a live or ‘as live', project for you to work on and produce a solution. The ‘liveness' of the project refers to the fact that it is a current issue that the organisation is currently experiencing and that you are working on a problem that therefore could contribute to, or change, how the organisation responds.

30 credits

This module aims to build understanding of the role of an Art Director in the conceptualisation and development of advertising, communication, content creation and branding messages for a business, institution or movement. The module will further develop theories of visual communication and graphic design skills introduced in HA4301 and HA4302 and explore the structure, processes and practices of the advertising sector. The focus within the module is on the visual appearance of advertising 2 or content (print, digital and video) and how the intended moods, information, concepts and values are translated into print, still, video and VR/AR work.

30 credits

This module deepens your understanding of the role and practices of an Art Director in advertising. In this module, the task of translating messages and moods, benefits and values is extended to that of the design of a fully integrated campaign. This module will allow you to experiment with a core advertising campaign message and produce a number of visual, typographical, editorial, social or content ideas that all adhere to the same core messaging

You will be provided conceptual frameworks through which to critically analyse integrated 360 campaigns, further explore how emerging technologies such as Snapchat Spectacles and Ad Blocking software are changing the advertising landscape. Narrative and digital. Practical projects involving the creation of prototype integrated advertising campaigns which will give students the opportunity to explore the practices and theories of producing concepts and content across multiple channels (social, TV, online, digital, experiential, immersive). The module will investigate how the multi-channel nature of advertising strategies affects the design of the message.

30 credits

This module explores what attitudes, skills and activities equip the entrepreneur in the Creative and Cultural Industries with the resources and decision-making skills to survive and thrive. It takes the term culturepreneur - originally one of derision, and problematises the distinctive features of enterprising people and teams that attempt to craft desirable value propositions for their users or customers while at the same time ensuring they capture sufficient revenue and build and deploy necessary reputational capital.

The module is not intended to be a business planning module as though there maybe cases where enterprises are conceptualised and pitched it is also the case that entrepreneurship is a broader concept concerning the creation and execution of creative projects that involve enterprising or new formulations of value. In these cases ideas still need to be conceptualised, prototyped, resources identified and won.

30 credits

This is the programme's capstone module, a double-weighted individual piece of work that provides an opportunity for you to consolidate and apply previous knowledge gained and skills acquired during your degree. It will be an opportunity to develop and express your creative self, demonstrated through the production of a major enquiry into and response to an issue experienced by people and organisations operating in the creative industries. The work will be theoretically informed and practically orientated and be relevant to the field of your degree; either Art Direction, Curation Exhibition and Events or Design Marketing.

15 credits

This module gives you a dedicated opportunity to develop your Future Skills Graduate Attributes. 

At the start of the module, you will be supported to self-assess your current skills profile. You will determine which attributes and skills you need to develop to support your career ambitions. In this process, you will be supported by a dedicated career coach, helping you explore a range of options that includes self-employment/freelancing, starting your own business, higher level study, and other professional graduate-level opportunities. Throughout the module, you will be given opportunities to engage with external mentors, to support reflection and to develop a professional network.

You will undertake a tailored series of activities and projects, aligned to your goals, from a menu of development options. This could include short courses, enrichment activities and experiential learning options such as micro-placements. You will also be able to reflect on activities outside the University that develop your graduate attributes, such as work or volunteering.

15 credits

This module provides final-year students with the opportunity to develop a professional portfolio tailored to their career ambitions in the creative industries as the final step in Future Skills development known as Apply. The module is designed to support students in curating, refining, and presenting their work in a way that effectively communicates their skills, creativity, and professional identity.

Through workshops, industry insights, and guided reflection, students will explore best practices in portfolio development across the specialisms of Art Direction, Design Marketing, and Events & Experience Design. The module emphasises the development of Kingston University's Future Skills graduate attributes, including creative problem solving, digital competency, being enterprising, having a questioning mindset, adaptability, empathy, collaboration, resilience, and self-awareness.

A key component of this module is a cycle of industry standard mock interviews, where students will present their portfolios and receive constructive feedback on their work, communication skills, and professional presence. This process will prepare students for real-world job applications and client interactions, ensuring they can confidently articulate their creative vision and expertise.

The module culminates in a portfolio submission and a mock interview assessment, complemented by a critical reflection on the development process and strategic planning for their next career steps.