Foundation Diploma in Art and Design

Originally developed at the University in the 1950s, the Foundation Diploma is a well-respected and nationally recognised qualification. This intensive one-year course challenges your preconceptions and stretches your art and design practices through problem-solving, idea generation, and critical thinking.

This course will push you outside your usual comfort zone and ask you to take creative risks. You will learn through playful experimentation and develop lateral-thinking strategies to approach problems from new perspectives. The course gradually moves from wide-ranging staff-led projects to a position of independence, culminating in a significant individual project in the final stage.

The ability to draw is one of our most valuable creative tools— that is why drawing, in its many forms, underpins all course elements. Within this highly creative environment, you’ll be helped to become more inventive and experimental. You will develop your understanding of the work of contemporary practitioners, and the work developed by your peers.