Games Art and Design MA

• The MA Games Art and Design degree allows you to develop your Games Art and Design skills and knowledge to a professional level.
• You will produce a commercial-standard personal portfolio that reflects the forefront of current practices in approach, style and vision.
• Explore the theoretical and contextual understanding of games art, its audiences and significances in our contemporary media culture.
• Develop professional-level enquiry, research, creative invention, project planning and management practices.
• On this masters degree you will learn in a multi-disciplinary environment through discussion and the exploration of ideas.
• See our MA Games Art Vimeo Page for showreels and alumni activity.

Why choose this course?

This MA Games Art and Design degree meets the needs of the games industry. The games industry has developed dramatically from the days of the solo practitioner to become a global market where large teams of artists work in unison to create content for the next generation of interactive game technologies. The current games art and design practitioner is likely to become a specialist in one area, such as character modelling, environment creation, lighting, animating etc. This award fuses technical knowledge of real-time rendering with the aesthetic decisions and traditional skills you will need as a games artist.

On this postgraduate Games Art and Design degree, your study will include ways of thinking about the cultural resonance of your work and about the audiences it is made for, about the nature of creativity, and the role of the Cultural Industries in a modern knowledge economy. Through your study you will develop a range of project management skills, and an ability to identify and manage your own learning. You will consider the role of enterprise opportunities in commercial, professional and social environments. Enquiry, research and clear communication underpin work throughout the programme. As well as specialist modules in your chosen discipline area the programme includes modules that are shared with other postgraduate awards in the School of Creative Arts.

The structure of MA Games Art and Design promotes cross-discipline discussion and maintains the enthusiasm and focus of discipline specialists. It enables you to develop the key transferable skills of postgraduate study grounded in activities that have currency, relevance and application for your future career and for further academic study.

The MA Games Art and Design course, part of the postgraduate Media programme, offers you a coherent learning in one of several awards. It enables you to develop creative practical skills in a discipline of your choosing. That work may extend your existing skills, knowledge and understanding, or it may mean a change of direction, new learning, and new experiences. Induction, seminars and social events for students and staff mean that you will be part of a friendly and supportive postgraduate community, which includes film makers, musicians and professionals working in new media. Senior research staff and internationally renowned professionals work with postgraduate students, helping you to develop original and challenging work.

Find out more with this leaflet on the course.

Careers

Particular emphasis is given to providing you with the skills necessary to further your career as an Games Artist. The course is designed to help you understand and work within the contemporary media environment.

You will also acquire enquiry and information handling skills, enterprise skills in the development and presentation of ideas, in communicating in the spoken and written word, and addressing particular audiences.

Teaching methods

On this programme teaching and learning emphasises enquiry led project work, developing the kind of independence and autonomy that is appropriate for postgraduate education. Lectures, seminars and other discussions bring students together in multi-disciplinary groups where ideas are shared, challenged, developed. Workshops and other activities develop specific discipline-centred skills and understandings while tutorials develop individual study trajectories and responses to assignment tasks and briefs.

Much of the time students are engaged in self-managed independent study, undertaking enquiries and research, developing skills, inventing and developing ideas, realizing project outcomes, exploring the cultural resonance of their work.

All students on the PG Media programme engage in an interdisciplinary project as a part of their MA study, giving them an opportunity to work with students from other disciplines in an experimental and creative way.

Work Placement

There are work related learning opportunities on this course, all students complete a live external brief as part of their coursework.

Structure

_{Core Modules}

• Creative Economies - 15 Credits
• Major Study: Games Art and Design - 60 Credits
• Research and Enquiry - 15 Credits
• Practice 1: Media - 30 Credits
• Practice 2: Media - 30 Credits
• Media Discourses - 30 Credits

_Optional

• Research and Enquiry (Online) - 15 Credits
• Creative Economies (Online) - 15 Credits

Fees & funding

Fees 2019

UK/EU Students

_{Full time}

• £8400 for the 2019/2020 academic year

_{Part time}

• £700 per 15 credits for the 2019/2020 academic year

International Students

_{Full time}

• £12650 for the 2019/2020 academic year

_{Part time}

• £1050 per 15 credits for the 2019/2020 academic year

Discounts are available for International students if payment is made in full at registration

*Tuition fees are charged annually. The fees quoted above are for the specified year(s) only. Fees may be higher in future years, for both new and continuing students. Please see the University’s Fees and Finance Policy (and in particular the section headed “When tuition fees change”), for further information about when and by how much the University may increase its fees for future years.

View detailed information about tuition fees

Other financial support

Find out more about other financial support available to UK and EU students

Living costs / accommodation

The University of Hertfordshire offers a great choice of student accommodation, on campus or nearby in the local area, to suit every student budget.

View detailed information about our accommodation

How to apply

• 26/09/2019 - Apply online (Full Time)
• 26/09/2019 - Apply online (Part Time)

Visit the Games Art and Design MA page on the University of Hertfordshire website for more details!