BA (Hons) Digital and Graphic Design Bachelor's degree at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

This module your introduction into the core skills, principles, key software and fundamentals of digital graphic design. You will experiment and iterate core graphic design skills to develop a design process that will structure how you will effectively answer any future design brief.

You will explore the technical and aesthetic principles behind motion design and create a 20-30 second typographic ident. You will learn about typography principles in the context of motion and gain rudimentary skills in pre-production, production and post-production.

This module introduces students to the foundational principles of still and moving image creation essential for storytelling. Through a series of guided exercises, students will develop their technical skills in film and photography while critically reflecting on their learning experience.

A digital graphic designer needs to understand how to design in a collaborative way. You will learn to design strategically as part of a team to research, ideate and create a group design outcome that answers the brief, the client's aims and connects with the target audience's needs, desires and experiences.

This module will introduce students to the Media and Creative industries, focusing on Economics, Regulation, Ownership and Publicity. Students will consider the historic origins of a range of sectors within the Media and Creative Industries and explore contemporary trends and features through a range of case studies.

This Creative Practice module places a foundational emphasis on critical thinking and writing for various contexts, such as news articles, press releases, and blog posts. By analysing creative productions and engaging with digital media, students will produce writings that reflect a critical perspective on key elements such as human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, social justice, environmental issues, decolonisation, and other Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) elements.

While your design tools are digital the media you will design for covers a vast range of digital and printed possibilities. You will explore the differences between screen and print colour formats (CMYK and RGB), typefaces for screen and for print, gridding layouts for digital and printed outcomes, the optimal file formats for different media, the resolution considerations for imagery to ensure quality, scalability and a seamless consistency of the visual communication aesthetic between onscreen

This module consolidates your grasp of digital graphic design practice and expands it into interaction design to design screen-based interactive experiences. Your technical, conceptual and practical design processes will now turn to human-centred design processes that centres a target audience within your creative design decision-making.

Students will learn about the AI tools and products that professional PR and Marketing practitioners can use to help with content ideation, writing copy, competitor analysis, SEO, streamlining, automation etc. They will also evaluate the ethical and security concerns around AI such as copyright, competitor sensitive information, disinformation and deep fakes.

This module expands on your core digital graphic design skills by introducing you to more professional contexts to the design process. This attention to professional development will involve both group and individual work. As part of a team you will research, ideate and create a group design outcome that answers a set semi-live brief and target audience's needs while workshopping and experiencing different professional design roles and responsibilities.

This module introduces you to the ethical and sustainable impacts of design, marketing and digital media. Through a serious of lectures, workshops and activities (with invited experts) you will explore the tools and strategic thinking to develop your own sustainable design and communication manifesto. This will aid your ability to enhance how you design and/or communicate without adversely impacting our environment.

This module investigates the art and science of persuasive communication and considers its history and how it is used in practice across many fields such as Marketing, PR, Politics, Government communication, Health communication, cults, film and documentaries.

This module introduces you to a deeper understanding of the core principles underpinning graphic design practice. The module develops your own technical, conceptual and practical processes to provide you with a solid foundation for subsequent exploration of digital graphic design. You will explore and improve your design software skills and improve how you manipulate type and imagery to visually communicate across a range of media.

This module expands core graphic design techniques and skills, by applying them to the design of a branded campaign to action a target audience to a desired impactful positive change in behaviour. You will enhance your understanding of target audience needs and concerns by designing an art directed branded campaign. This will include considerations for targeted content creation, environmental design, way finding, advertising and visual identities in the campaign outcomes.

This module consolidates your core digital graphic design skills within working on a live professional project brief set by a 'client.' This will involve collaborative group work and individual contributions to answering the brief and presenting mid-point and final pitches to a panel. As part of a team you will research, ideate and create a group design outcome that answers a set external professional brief and target audience's needs to a professional level.

This module introduces students to a range of approaches, methods and practices for researching the media, culture and society. Students will study topics most relevant to their degree programme, from the areas of creative practice, textual analysis, researching audiences and people, and discourse and content analysis.

The Business of Creativity will be the starting place for developing your business ideas. It aims to support students with a range of skills and tools to prepare for the world of work as creative freelance practitioners and/or entrepreneurs. During the module you will have the opportunity to identify, research, critically evaluate, design and defend a creative Business Plan.

This semester 1 module focuses your final year of digital graphic design study onto the professional expectations of designing within your chosen area of the design industry. You have agency to select the most appropriate design brief that reflects your chosen design specialism so you can demonstrate how your completed design outcome answers the design industry brief.

This module takes you to the highest level of digital graphic design study. You will focus your development and ambition to select a final major project to reflect your employability ambition. You will demonstrate how you design with audiences in mind, and how your completed design outcome will have socio-cultural impact.

In a design placement or design project over the summer period between year three and year four, you will be able to apply the knowledge and skills you've gained in a professional setting and learn new competencies from within the professional design industry. From this professional design placement/project you will be able to curate your knowledge and skills into a personal digital portfolio you will use to further your career after graduation.

You can choose to either write a traditional dissertation of 9,000 words or take a creative practice dissertation either in photography or graphic design. This form of dissertation will be a 3,000 word exegesis on a body of work that will either be a portfolio of photographic work, or a graphic design project they negotiate with their supervisor.