Illustration (with Professional Practice Year)

BA (Hons) Illustration with Professional Practice Year is a four-year degree programme, in year three you undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

Learn the language of illustration and find your visual voice.

Experiment, explore, play, and take risks in studios where ideas are tested through material practice and critical thinking. You’ll work with long‑established techniques as well as emerging technologies, building a practice that shifts easily between approaches and continually redefines what illustration can be. This is illustration taught as a dynamic, materially exploratory, and conceptually rigorous discipline – shaped by the creative possibilities that happen when methods and ideas collide.

You'll have the chance to work on live briefs for brands like Toyota, Netflix, and Hallmark, and enter competitions including the Penguin Design Awards and the Folio Society, and have your portfolio reviewed by creative agents who work with emerging illustrators. These industry connections inform the curriculum and are designed to help you build confidence, experience and a developing professional voice as you progress through the degree.

By the time you graduate, you'll have a distinctive visual voice, a portfolio that spans editorial, narrative, children's books, brand work – and the creative confidence to go freelance, get signed by an agency, or carve out a practice entirely your own.

If you prefer a closer, more community feel, UCA’s creative campuses in Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, and Maidstone could be for you. Each campus is home to a vibrant community of like-minded creatives, with supportive and passionate academic staff to help you bring your ideas to life.

As a UCA student, you’ll have access to their specialist creative facilities, from VR studios and digital editing suites to traditional craft workshops and your own dedicated art space. Here you can experiment, find inspiration, and get all the support you need.

UCA know you're more than just grades – that's why they’ll look beyond your certificates to get an understanding of your passions, personality, and portfolio.

Applying through Clearing could lead to a degree you’ll love. Join UCA’s creative community this September.