Digital Media Design, BSc (Hons), with industry placement

Course summary

Digital Media Design will teach you high-level industry production skills including coding, 3D modelling, UI/UX (user interface and user experience) design, creative practice and design. You’ll get a chance to make games, websites, apps and interactive and virtual reality experiences. At the cutting edge of art and design for 28 years, the Institute of Digital Art and Technology has graduates across digital creative industries worldwide – working for Apple, Nintendo, Spotify and Sony. Choose a technical focus with the BSc - our graduates are among the world’s best game designers, digital artists, web designers, coders and creative thinkers.*Gain invaluable professional experience with the option to take part in a year-long, paid work placement.*Close links with industry leaders – designed in close collaboration with industry leaders to ensure technologies, skills and techniques are up-to-date.*Access all areas: keep working into the evening in our dedicated lab space open until 10 pm, and take advantage of our other amazing facilities, including a 35-seat, 360° immersive vision theatre.*Our inspiring graduates have gone on to work in some of the biggest tech, design and games companies worldwide, including Electronic Arts, IBM, Yahoo and Reddit.*Broaden your horizons with great enrichment activities, including overseas field trips in Amsterdam, Berlin and Barcelona to attend conferences and visit galleries.*Informed by the latest exciting research from i-DAT and Transtech.

In your first year, you’ll get a grounding in the digital media, software, technologies and production techniques needed throughout the course. You’ll also gain a critical understanding of the theory behind digital media and the social, cultural and industrial contexts in which they operate. You’ll be introduced to contemporary graphic and motion graphic tools, web design and web programming technologies, along with the coding skills and creative design strategies that underpin them. In your second year, you’ll build on your creative profile and improve your technical and critical skills. If you intend to choose the placement year, you’ll get a chance to build your CV and portfolio. You’ll be introduced to industrial strength project management and planning, helping you develop your individual creative practice. Professional collaborations with industry will give you insights into the benefits of both individual and group ways of working. You have the opportunity to take an optional paid 48 week work placement that offers invaluable practical work experience. We recommend it because it not only enhances your final year of study, you’re also more likely to receive project sponsorship and immediate employment with your placement company after you graduate. In your final year, you’ll focus on your own particular areas of interest, with an industrial bias, by following one of our exit pathways in game design, information design, or interaction design. This will allow you to develop the skills relevant to industry and enhance your employability. You'll also undertake a final year dissertation on a topic of your choice with the guidance of your personal supervisor. The modules shown for this course or programme are those being studied by current students, or are proposed new modules. Please note that programme structures and individual modules are subject to amendment from time to time as part of the University’s curriculum enrichment programme and in line with changes in the University’s policies and requirements.