MA Games Art and Design

"Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, examinations may be replaced by an alternative form of assessment during the academic year 2021/2022. Please refer to the Programme Specification on these pages for further details."

Why choose Herts?

• Excellent Reputation: Ranked 1st in the UK as Top Games Development School (10th worldwide) and 1st for Games Design & Development Production Excellence (Rookies World School Rankings® 2020).
• Employment Prospects: Graduates work for most major games' companies including BAFTA-winning UK games studio Creative Assembly, Frontier, Splash Damage, Guerrilla Games, Mediatonic Games and Rare.
• Industry-Related Learning: There are work-related learning opportunities on this course, all students complete a live external brief provided by a major games studio as part of their coursework.

About the course

• The MA Games Art and Design degree allow 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 its 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.

Why choose this course?

This M.A. Games Art and Design degree meet 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 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 M.A. 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 M.A. Games Art and Design course, part of the postgraduate Media programme, offers you 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 filmmakers, 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.

Student experience

At the University of Hertfordshire, we want to make sure your time studying with us is as stress-free and rewarding as possible. We offer a range of support services including; student wellbeing, academic support, accommodation, and childcare to ensure that you make the most of your time at Herts and can focus on studying and having fun.

Additional information

• Sandwich placement or study abroad year: n/a
• Applications open to international and EU students: Yes

What will I study?

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 centered skills and understandings while tutorials develop individual study trajectories and responses to assign 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 P.G. Media programme engage in an interdisciplinary project as a part of their M.A. study, giving them an opportunity to work with students from other disciplines in an experimental and creative way.

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

Level 7

• Creative Economies II 15 Credits II Compulsory
• Major Study: Games Art and Design II 60 Credits II Compulsory
• Research and Enquiry II 15 Credits II Compulsory
• Practice 1: Media II 30 Credits II Compulsory
• Practice 2: Media II 30 Credits II Compulsory
• Media Discourses II 30 Credits II Compulsory
• Research and Enquiry (Online) II 15 Credits II Optional
• Creative Economies (Online) II 15 Credits II Optional

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.