Art and Design at university; for past, present, and future students and parents

[PhotoDad]

I've been on a wonderful thread about applications for art/design applications for the coming academic year, and I thought it might be useful to have a more general place for people at different stages of the process to share advice and hints. The normal MN advice about universities is often not applicable to these subjects!

I'll keep this short because I personally don't like huge posts that appear at the top of each page, but I'll add some starting thoughts below. I know that there's a huge range of experience here and a lot of support, so please do ask questions, or share triumphs and disasters.

The original thread is here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/4626697-2023-uni-applications-for-those-pursuing-art-and-creative-routes

@FriendlyLaundryMonster look at Dundee too.

I studied art at uni (BA and MA) and I now work in the cultural sector. So I'm happy to chip in with advice if I can. I'll have a look at th thread...

However I did just start a thread about being burnt out... So

The other thing I'd say about choosing a uni (at least for my DD's subject, Graphic Design, but probably applies to others too) is look into how well they support you to find summer internships, network etc. My DD started uni as a shy thing, but by the end of her degree she'd been forced to do so many networking events, live briefs with feedback sessions from local professionals, etc, that her social confidence in work situations had really improved. The uni were really good at supporting with Linkedin networking, CV writing etc. She's now doing well in her career.

I did graphic design at Camberwell in the nineties and went straight into a career in editorial design in magazines until I switched to digital design around 2010.

My degree was more about learning how to think and edit my ideas and less about technical skills. I learn new skills, techniques and processes all the time but the fundamental design principles and thought processes stay the same.

My DD is in year 13 and has applied this year to five photography degree courses and has offers from all five with UAL’s Commercial Photography degree offer coming in last this morning. MMU were very late to offer too. She’s torn between Manchester and Falmouth. She loves the course and staff at Falmouth but loved the city and ‘vibe’ at Manchester with their new SODA building. She’s off to an offer holder day at MMU next Saturday so will hopefully know more clearly after that.

The course at UAL looks amazing but London is just too expensive and she’d have to work too many hours to afford living there which would take away from the opportunity to spend time on her own work for her degree. It’s a shame as the networking and commercial opportunities on the course look amazing. A couple of the commercial photography students I saw are making social ads for Adobe’s new software.

Also very happy to answer any questions about preparing portfolios or anything. My DD made hers a bit like a book going from where she started at the start of a levels through her first few projects and thought processes. That led to her first personal extension project (a book she made) and some ideas for some others she mocked up but didn’t actually do. She showed some experiments and how her work progressed through the year as her portfolio went in before Christmas so only really had one year of work in it (she did a lot of work in year 12 m). She put in some commercial social media posts she made on work experience keeping on brand and using her photography. And she put a page of her images that had been shortlisted in national competitions. She also annotated it all so they could understand her thought processes and why she’d made certain decisions and what she thought worked and what didn’t and why.

There were about 15 pages or so I think in total and each university had different requirements so she made one main portfolio which was then edited differently for each. UAL have their own platform to upload to called Pebblepad and she made jpegs of her pdf portfolio to upload there. Falmouth was hard in terms of trying to compress it to fit their upload requirements but then she saw a place you could link an external portfolio. I’d link it here if it wasn’t so identifying!

Leeds weren’t very vigorous at all and the offer was almost immediate off of just three images with no annotations. Falmouth take a lot of care and do in person interviews and my DD feels a real connection with their staff but she’s worried about the location as she likes to travel to photograph things and petrol is expensive and it’s a long drive just to get out of Cornwall!

@PerkyBlinder Falmouth for rep but it is fairly isolated! Had a chat a couple weeks ago with a lad at Exeter but his course is taught in Falmouth and he lives at the Penryn campus. He enjoys it but definitely not a bustling city! He lives in London the rest of the time for a city fix.
Student experience is such a major part of uni that where (geographically) is as important as what. Hope going back to Manchester helps firm her decision.
Thanks for the tip about the digital portfolio for Falmouth. DD found (for FAD applications) UAL Pebblepad the easiest, for Kingston she just couldn't get the link to work (they would have had to paste it to a browser). We did warn them the hyperlink wouldn't work.
I also did graphic design in the early 80s and though a top university (Parsons School of Design in NY) I wouldn't say it prepared me AT ALL for working. I also went into publishing (junior in the art department).

DD has signed up for the optional placement year; she'll soon find out how much support she will get from the uni. As her particular speciality (illustration) is mostly freelance work, the course has employability/business-skills (web-presence, invoicing, tax) as part of its final year modules. Again, not sure how useful that will be, but better than nothing!

Student experience is very important, especially feeling at home in the uni/city. She's been lucky there (although accommodation after the first year is tricky in most places).

What they don't tell you when your child does a FAD. Mercy run to pick up supplies ...

I don't know what is being made but I'll post a pic of the FMP.....

I have a degree in design and worked as a designer. I spent a long time teaching Art A level and DT alevel.

These are my thoughts.

Contrary to above, l would never recommend a course that wasn’t a sandwich course. Even if it’s shit it’s given you a year in industry which is helpful when you are job hunting for first job.

Unfortunately it’s much much easier to get a job with a design degree than a fine art degree. By design l mean digital design, graphic design, fashion design , textile design ( not fine art textiles or embroidery) product design, website/app design. These are all employable jobs and it is one of the reason schools can struggle to recruit DT teachers but not art teachers.

Illustration though a hugely enjoyable degree is very hard to find work in. And fine art qualifies you to be an art teacher or a painter.

Not every course wants to see a portfolio. I’ve had many students told to turn up without one. They assume if you are doing A level art/design that you are capable anyway.

A level DT but interestingly not A level art will let you bypass a foundation course in art and design and go straight to a first year degree entrance.

l know people will come on disputing this. But this is my experience.

@Localher0 Colour me intrigued!

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow Those are all good thoughts; the more advice the merrier! We're aware that illustration is less immediately employable than, say, graphic design but DD wanted to give it a shot. We'll have to see how it turns out. Also interesting about the portfolio; DD's experience was different, but of course that's only one person.

DD has today found that she's been shortlisted for a paid summer illustration job with her uni (for a new website section) so fingers crossed that's baby steps along the route to a good CV. I definitely agree that can matter (as with the sandwich year).

@Localher0 lol we had to do one of those emergency runs a few months ago - fragile oversized mobile on a very windy day!
No idea what the final foundation piece is, she's being very secretive.

@Localher0 I have been on amazon routinely over last few weeks. Spirit level, dymo labelling machine, endless amounts of A1 paper etc etc

On transporting art, does anyone have any advice on portfolio cases or other methods? Dd has started doing oils and will want to transport her work in progress. On the drawing front, she has a large A1 drawing which she's working on and a heavy board she has it taped to, which is slightly larger. She'll be travelling back to school by coach and not sure they'll let her take it on board, but will shove it in the hold. How should she protect it? You can see I'm trying to avoid a long drive solely to protect artwork!

There are portfolios just a bit larger than A1, and there's a few on Amazon (be careful some have rings for sleeves which decrease space). Or can she take her drawing off the board and roll it then get another board at school?
You have to think how she can carry a tube/large portfolio and whatever else she needs to bring at the other end though.

Another strange question here from an art novice! I've got dd a tube to carry her drawing(s) in. Is there anything she needs to do to protect them. Will they smudge when rolled? Does she need to lay something like greaseproof paper over them before rolling? Steep learning curve ahead for me, as you can see!

Spray hairspray on them. That stops smudging.

Thanks. We’re trying not to do this as a friend who’s a professional artist warned against it. Apparently the fixative or spray can age!

Placemarking

I’ve never heard this. I’ve still got stuff l did on foundation in 1983. It hasn’t aged.

You can buy fixative, but it’s pricey. When l was teaching art A level, everyone used hairspray to fix stuff. None of the work aged🤔. They all got into university.

Yes, I think it’s fine for a generation, but will age eventually. We were told as we had some lovely family drawings that we’d want to pass down through the family, but it’s not so important if it’s for a shorter timescale.

I’ve always used hairspray too but have never bothered about any of my work being archival quality although I’ve sold through galleries including the Royal Academy. It lasts well enough and everything ages eventually. You can use artists fixative but it’s expensive to the point that it’s beyond most student budgets.

As a designer on magazines, I’m always aware that our design masterpieces with incredible photography, typography, and illustration will end up in recycling and possibly even lining a rabbit hutch by the following week! 😂

However, that’s the part I also love. We put all this work and care into it and some of it is great art but it gets bought, read and thrown away and we get to start again from scratch every week. It’s a very liberating thing as it stops me getting stuck in perfectionism. When it all got stressy and the editor was having ‘a moment’, I reminded myself nobody would die if maybe red would work better than green and it would be sat in recycling a week after publication.

As far as transporting oils in progress, at some points of the painting, you can’t really transport it so so it’s best to be able to leave it in college or at home until finished to a point where it’s dry enough to transport. I used to have both a tube and a flat portfolio which I used to transport work in and out of college. I’d use tracing paper and hairspray to protect delicate work from smudging but sometimes it does and I’d just redo the smudged area.

@mondaytosunday it sounds like we started in publishing around the same time. I started just as everyone moved from paste up to using Quark and we’d have to use really low res images as positionals and would do really rough cut outs as had a repro house to do all our cut outs, colour correction, and retouching! Oh the luxury!

For the magazine cover, we’d use another company entirely and I’d sit in a dark room with a professional retoucher using something which wasn’t photoshop and direct the retouching. On Quark I remember the Control, alt and delete Easter egg for when you were really bored to watch the alien walk across your screen to zap the box. 😂

Have you heard from UAL yet?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow agree with much of that! Although I suspect the art courses who don’t want to see a portfolio are the ones not over subscribed and who want the bum on the seat for funding. Possibly just the fact the student has applied is all the proof they need that they are motivated enough to be on the course?

@PhotoDad That’s fab news on the commission 🥳 and hope it goes well.

@Localher0 - am also v intrigued about what will emerge from that!

No @PerkyBlinder! But she got another 'while you are waiting' email about how brilliant they are - not very helpful. She's accepted the offer from Morley, so I think it's just a validation from UAL she'd like.
She got her marks for Art, and going by 2019 boundaries she's comfortably in the A star area, but she says nothing is certain as it's yet to moderated.
She also found out her EPQ, submitted in November, has been chosen for moderation (apparently they only do spot checks on a few EPQs to make sure the schools are adhering to the marking scheme). So she won't get that grade til results day in August.
But study leave now - first written exam next Friday.

@PerkyBlinder , no it’s several that haven’t been asked to show their work. Nottingham Trent? But that’s a really popular place. I’ve got a weird feeling about Hlasgow too. I think they didn’t see them.