2016/17

School
of Communication

Professor Neville Brody is an

internationally renowned designer,
typographer, art director, brand
strategist and consultant, whose
approach to design and typography has
changed the communication landscape,
including creating new visual languages
for The Times and BBC online.

Associate Dean Professor Teal Triggs

is an educator, historian and writer
whose work is situated at the
intersection of graphic design history
and popular culture. In addition to her
work as a design writer and researcher,
Triggs co-founded the Womens
Design + Research Unit in 1994.

Dean of School
Professor Neville Brody

We are at the threshold of a new and

vital moment in communications history.
I am excited by the possibility of combining
the RCAs deep sense of history, craft and
experience with a dynamic, relevant
and exploratory approach to art and design
communications. The RCA is a centre
of excellence for art and design, and is the
natural home for all visual communications.

staff participate in exhibitions, competitions,

publications and festivals.
Our active approach to exhibiting student
work and to seeking creative projects through
collaboration with our industry partners leads
to exposure and engagement. Partnerships with
Hyundai, Fiat and Tate continue to bring pivotal
projects and opportunities.
Research is a vital part of our School, with
MPhil and PhD candidates working alongside
practice-based students, informing and
challenging our curricula.

The School of Communication encourages

above all a dynamic, cross-disciplinary approach
to study and practice that is rooted in exploration
and invention through the use of mixed studios
and cross-electives. The broad spectrum of
skills we embrace extends from making things
to making thought, and carries us across an
ever-shifting landscape of intertwined activity
that extends from print to film and time-based
media; image-making and sound design to game
play; and social enquiry and digital boundaries to
physical installations.
School of Communication students work
in collaboration with other designers and artists
across the College, while both students and

Staff Teaching staff are all recognised

practitioners in their own fields, bringing depth
of experience to academic practice, and are
joined by visiting professors and guest lecturers
who act as informants or disruptors. For further
information on staff, including research interests,
exhibitions and publications, please visit:
rca.ac.uk/staff

School of Communication

In a world where environmental, social,

political, religious, technological and
professional issues and structures are
changing kaleidoscopically, no area of
cultural activity is more challenging than
the field of communications. With traditional
boundaries between disciplines dissolving,
the ethos of this School, and of the College,
is ideally equipped to enable students to
follow a programme of pre-professional
experimentation tailored to their individual
needs and skills.

 Graduates from a diversity of communications

backgrounds: graphic design, information
design, exhibition design, digital design and
typographic design.
Graduates from the social sciences, humanities
or design journalism, and those seeking to develop
their design capabilities within an information
design discipline.
Experienced designers including mid-career to
senior professionals looking to re-engage with
study, expose themselves to new challenges and be
part of an exciting multicultural creative community.
For College-wide and programme-specific
requirements, please visit:
rca.ac.uk/entrance-requirements

Alumni The Royal College of Art is rightly

proud of its graduates achievements. Alumni from
the RCA form part of an international network
of creative individuals who have shaped and
continue to shape the culture surrounding all of us
from the landscape of our cities and the way we
communicate to the furniture and appliances in our
homes, and from the clothes we wear and the films
we watch to the work we experience in galleries.
Well-known alumni include: A2/SW/HK,
A Practice for Everyday Life, Animade, Jonathan
Barnbrook, Beakus, Brothers Quay, Dan Eatock,
Sara Fanelli, Alan Fletcher, Fuel, Graphic Thought
Facility, Jonathan Hodgson, Philip Hunt, Johnny
Kelly, Ruth Lingford, Thomas Matthews, Eamonn
ONeill, Mike Please, Julia Pott, David Prosser,
Suzie Templeton, Troika, Ridley Scott, Run Wrake,
Shynola, Why Not Associates.

School of Communication

Applications are welcomed from

MA Animation: Fish is What I Desire, Film still, Yao Xiang

Animation programme a world leader in practice

and research, with a commitment to broadening the
understanding of our discipline. We offer a unique
learning and teaching environment, developing
students creativity and skills, which are required in
an age of rapid cultural and technological change. Our
aim is to train directors/artists who contribute to this
expanding and maturing field of moving image.
Through innovative, practical research and an
understanding of different contexts, traditions and
histories, students learn through a combination of
workshops, lectures, tutorials and most importantly,
through their own practice.
The emphasis of the Animation programme is
the development of auteurartistfilmmakers with
a relationship to the industry, in both narrative and
factual form. Our programme is about practising
animation within a visually sophisticated, innovative
and multidisciplinary art and design context, which
includes and demands developing skills and expertise.
Our graduates shape the progress of
animation in- and outside the industry as innovative
designers and directors. The auteurfilmmaker
approach practised by the programme is effective as
a holistic method of preparing animation artists.
Our graduates hold senior positions and innovative
roles within gallery- and industry-based animation.

The achievements of our students and graduates

can be seen in the variety of accolades received
by them over recent years, including an Oscar,
the Royal Television Society Award, Adobe Design
Achievement Award, Jerwood Prize and five awards
from BAFTA.

animation@rca.ac.uk
rca.ac.uk/animation

Animation Tim Webb is Acting Head of the

MA Information Experience Design: Student work from Show 2015

Led by Dr Kevin Walker, Information Experience

Design is about critical making and experimental
art and design practice, encompassing sound and
moving image, data visualisation, installations and
exhibitions, interface and experience design, making
and hacking, using a range of physical and digital
materials. It aims to make the intangible tangible and
experiential, through interdisciplinary collaboration,
contextual enquiry and creative practice.
IED is set within the vibrant mixed studios
of the RCAs School of Communication, with an
Experimental Lab as its hub. Professor Neville Brody,
who provides inspiration and instigation, calls IED an
interface between information and experience, and a
platform for exploring post-screen, post-digital and
post-disciplinary practice. Tutors, visiting lecturers
and guests are at the forefront of practice and
thinking internationally in art, design and science.
Our MA, MPhil and PhD students work
alongside the Schools graphic designers,
animators and illustrators, as well as with other RCA
programmes and external scientists, companies,
architects and academics.
IED offers specific training in working with
data, programming and electronics, prototyping and
making, using a range of methods and materials,
and tools for enquiry, investigation and research. Our

Experimental Lab is stocked with a range of hardware

and software prototyping tools.
IED develops a mindset as well as a skillset.
No specific technical skills are required; applicants
come from diverse backgrounds in design,
fine art, technology, the sciences and humanities,
with a common critical interest in data, design
and making. Graduates may go on to work
in visualisation, data science, advanced design
practice, cultural and educational institutions,
research labs or studio practice.
There are opportunities for exhibition,
publication, intervention, online and offline
dissemination, and commercialisation of student
work and research, as well as real-world projects and
research set in and around London, and international
exchanges and trips.

ied@rca.ac.uk
rca.ac.uk/ied

Information Experience Design (IED)

MA Visual Communication: Student work from Show 2015

Rathna Ramanathan, the Visual Communication

programme builds on its long history, which has
radically examined the place and importance of
visual communication in relation to culture and
society while highlighting the significance of an
interdisciplinary approach to the subject.
As noted by our students, the necessary
critical discourse around what it means to be a
visual communicator today opens up possibilities
about the process and contexts of communication;
and in doing so shows that the designer and artists
skillset is transferable beyond the confines of the
purely visual. This is particularly important to
consider at a time when visual communication as a
discipline is undergoing a seismic shift in terms of
its vocational positioning and intellectual relevance.
Students and staff in Visual Communication
today work alongside and with each other in a
number of areas photography, video, text, paint,
sound, wood-block type, print, environment,
and digital, while also making full use of the
interdisciplinary potential of the College. The
programme aims to provide an environment within
which students feel free to experiment, to be
innovative and provocative; to question existing
practice, but to do so from the position of being
well informed.

The role of a communication designer or artist

today is no longer limited to a single discipline or
linear career path. Our graduates are fluent in a
range of technical skills and of thinking-throughmaking backed by an informed awareness of
context and audience; have the ability to work
collaboratively as well as independently; and above
all they carry a commitment to transform and
improve whichever field of the cultural environment
they choose to work in.
With the accent on individual development
within a vibrant and supportive working community,
the programme welcomes students with the desire
to reshape and push forward our understanding
of the three main disciplines: graphic design,
illustration and moving image.

visual-communication@rca.ac.uk
rca.ac.uk/viscomm

Visual Communication Led by Dr

Research Students: MPhil and PhD The School

welcomes applications for research degree study
from all areas of art, design and related disciplines
that demonstrate the potential for advanced research
and critical practice in the field of communication.
Projects that explore topical issues through both
practice and theory are particularly encouraged.
We look for critical engagement, originality
and proven skills in both practice and writing, and
encourage questioning and experimental research
approaches. Individual research topics should
normally relate to the ethos and expertise of the
Schools programmes and research areas, so that we
can provide appropriate supervision and resources.
The RCA offers a number of funded research
scholarships in collaboration with national funding
bodies. The College leads the London Doctoral Design
Centre (LDoc), an AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training.
The School has an established track record of
securing funding, and seven of our research students
are in receipt of AHRC Doctoral Awards. We also
support individual student applications to external
funding schemes.
communication-research@rca.ac.uk
rca.ac.uk/communication-research

Research in the
School of Communication

Research Advancing the field of communication

in the widest contexts, our research is a catalyst
for new ideas, methodologies, design tools and
practices. Through radical creative thinking,
experimentation and design innovation, our
ambition is to lead change and shape scenarios to
help address major world challenges.
Led by Tom Simmons, the Schools researchers
create future possibilities, applications and policy
interventions, focusing on three main research areas:
the construction of identities, the transformation of
publishing, and the shaping of experience.
Collaboration and knowledge exchange
frame the Schools approach to research and
development with industry, government and cultural
organisations. Our current partners include Huawei,
Yamaha, Thames & Hudson, Tata Consultancy
Services, Department for Communities and Local
Government and FACT Liverpool.
The School plays a leading role in the
prestigious Creative Exchange Hub (CX), which aims
to enhance human engagement with digital public
space. CX is one of the Arts and Humanities Research
Councils four Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the
Creative Economy. The Hub is operated in partnership
with the RCAs Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design,
Lancaster and Newcastle Universities, and over 50
pioneering companies.

Research: Benjamin Koslowski, States of Mind Visualising Mental Wellbeing, a Creative Exchange
research project. Photograph by Stephen King

Shooting studios include: Green Screen shooting studio

for live action and stop-frame; stop-frame studios.
Resources for visual and digital
communication students within the School of
Communication include well-equipped computer
studios for print and digital moving-image
production, sound editing, a letterpress and
bookbinding workshop, and spaces for installation
work. All studios are Wi-Fi enabled, with direct
access to the College network. We have our own
space for exhibiting work, and a break out room for
discussion and social events.
As part of the Creative Exchange Hub and in
partnership with industry and other public bodies,
the Digital Research Lab was launched in 2012,
with a remit to explore the rapidly evolving digital
public space.

Facilities

A studio workspace is provided for each student

in large, well-lit mixed-discipline studios. In addition,
students have the opportunity to access craft and
technical workshop areas, and excellent technical
support within the School and the College.
Animation MA and Research students projects
are supported in digital form or using a combination
of film, video and digital methods of production, with
a range of equipment and studios available to allow
creative slip between different methods of production
and exploration.
2D facilities include: motion-picture rostrum
cameras for digital, 16mm and 35mm film with
aerial image; digital video line-testers; digital
multiplane system; 2D digital facilities that give
access to digital ink and paint.
3D CGI and model facilities include: 3D Maya
seats; render facilities; stop-frame DSLR systems
with Dragon; stop-frame film cameras (16mm Bolex);
tripods, tracking device, flying rigs and full lighting kits
for 3D animation; SD and D7 DSLR HD live-action kits.
Sound facilities include: full ProTools
surround-sound mixing and recording studio;
portable digital recorders with microphones;
ProTools for creative track laying, SoundBooth and
Adobe Audition.

Facilities: School of Communication Studio. Photograph by Richard Haughton

Admissions
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore
London SW7 2EU
admissions@rca.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7590 4444
rca.ac.uk
School
school-of-communication@rca.ac.uk
For more information
about the School please go to
rca.ac.uk/school-of-communication

Animation
Information Experience Design
Visual Communication