Royal College of Art

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

GID offers an international style of learning and a unique and cultural context. Our vision is to provide you with an experience that is unparalleled in the world, nurturing you to be a design leader and creative catalyst who delivers positive social, environmental, economic and cultural change.

We revolve around leading international centres of innovation which collectively offer students a unique educational mix characterised by multidisciplinary intakes, shared values, complementary approaches and distinct expertise. We foster innovation that provides practical solutions to real-world issues, and our project themes in each location reflect local design culture, commercial interests and social challenges.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) is a unique double Master’s Programme that has been run jointly with Imperial College London for over 39 years. You’ll take advantage of the skills and cultures of two very different organisations. The result is the rigour and precision of science, technology and engineering in combination with the inspirational and creative aspects of design.

Our interdisciplinary approach focuses on the exploration and development of impactful innovation through critical observation, disruptive design thinking, experimentation, exploration of emergent technologies, advanced engineering and enterprise activities.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The MRes RCA Architecture Pathway offers training in practice-led and practice-based research methods, complementing the shared arts and humanities research methods taught across the College as part of the MRes RCA.

We encourage interdisciplinary research projects in collaboration with other Schools within the RCA and external partners. We have a strong emphasis on practice-led and experimental research, preparing graduates for diverse careers in academia, architectural and urban design practices, human rights organisations, and social and environmental coalitions.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The MRes RCA Communication Design Pathway will introduce you to practice-led and experimental research processes, methods and methodologies that inform communication design research. You’ll position your research within a social, historical, cultural and theoretical discourse through proven research methods and by engaging critically with reflective practice and evaluation.

The focus of the Pathway is to explore the nexus between social science, art and design methods and the ways in which they might be applied to independent research proposals, R&D consultancy or ‘live’ project briefs. Communication is at the core of this offer, engaging critically with different perspectives and sensory forms.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The MRes RCA Design Pathway builds design research skills that can be deployed within academic and professional careers. We foster innovation and tackle complex systems and social challenges, from the future of work to the circular economy, climate change, AI and healthcare.

We offer interdisciplinary learning; you'll be exposed to the full range of programmes across the School of Design, including our MAs, research centres and networks. Experienced researchers run seminars and workshops on design research across topics that include cybernetics, ethnography, ethics, future forecasting, speculative design, participatory design, action research, reflective practice, robotics and coding.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The MRes RCA Arts & Humanities Pathway introduces you to a range of practice-based research methods, in order to equip you for your future professional and research careers.

You’ll develop creative and critically engaged individual research projects that emerge from a broad range of arts-based practices: from painting, sculpture and performance to ceramics, installation, moving image and critical writing.

You’ll be able to forge strong networks with a range of peers, artists and academics within the School of Arts & Humanities research community and across the College.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Our Animation programme is world-renowned for artistic practice and innovative risk-taking. We encourage our students to deal creatively and sensitively with contemporary issues across a range of technologies and platforms. They find their own voice within a continuum of techniques, concepts and canons, and gain the critical tools, knowledge and confidence to become a game changer in the field of animation

Structured around a potent combination of workshops, lectures, discussions, screenings and tutorials, the curriculum has a particular emphasis on developing creative content informed by collaboration and research. We take a singular approach to learning and teaching to help you develop the skills to negotiate rapid cultural and technological change.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The two-year programme conceives of architecture as a diverse and complex set of practices that move beyond traditional distinctions and limits in the field. A radical and innovative approach to pedagogy and research, as well as a commitment to an open-minded, experimental studio-culture, sets the RCA apart.

Teaching on the MA programme revolves around the Architectural Design Studio. Each ADS is understood as a platform for design research organised around important global challenges and opportunities such as ecology, housing, urbanism, mobility and manufacturing.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The spirit of Ceramics & Glass at the RCA springs from a belief in the transformative power of material thinking, research and making to enrich our world in imaginative and meaningful ways. We embrace the diversity of contemporary practice in this hyper-material age.

Drawing on the rich provenance of materials, processes and practices to inform a creative interface between discourse and studio practice, we consider, question and propose new scenarios to address social, cultural and material questions.

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

City Design MA provides a forum for an emerging generation of architects and those in allied design based disciplines, interested in the convergence of new social, technical and spatial innovations and in harnessing their potential to generate alternate forms of urban life.

The global urban population stands at 4 billion, with dozens of megacities and expansive metropolitan aggregations emerging and consolidating. Urban life is undergoing momentous change as patterns of settlement, growth and decline diversify. Many cities are centralising as knowledge and service economy workforces are concentrating toward the core. This is adding enormous pressure to housing affordability. New social groups are emerging, populations are ageing, family units are extending and dispersing as work is casualised, and whole communities are moving online.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The Contemporary Art Practice programme offers a discursive environment in which to discuss contemporary issues for thinking about, making and displaying fine art. We deliver this via four pathways: Critical Practice, Moving Image, Performance and Public Sphere.

Our approach to Contemporary Art Practice is not determined by either technology or material, although you’ll be expected to utilise the appropriate technical means to make your works. You’ll have access to College-wide technical workshops according to academic need, as well as all facilities within the School of Arts & Humanities.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

We have a commitment to collaborative group project-based work that integrates theory and practice. We approach the field critically and theoretically, ensuring that the knowledge and understanding of these practices is grounded in the context of public audiences, urbanisation and the digital. Our research-led and practice-led teaching by staff and visiting tutors ensures the curatorial and artistic significance, intellectual value and critical vitality of the programme.

We offer practice-based learning and research-led teaching, through collaborative and project-based work. You’ll undertake a graduate project with external high-profile partners as well as an independent research-based dissertation. You’ll gain an awareness of wider social, political and economic contexts and an understanding of transnational contexts and issues of diversity and inclusion.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Design Products MA develops students to be creative, innovative design thinkers supporting them on the journey to develop their own design identities. The programme embraces a pluralistic approach to design across a number of design cultures, through which students develop their design identity.

These cultures represent current discourse and practice within the discipline. These span design through making and experimentation; design for manufacture; designing interactions; using design as a catalyst for change or a means to explore emergent scenarios.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Digital Direction addresses emerging issues in contemporary digital communication and the creative economy. Centring on broadcasting, film and experience, the programme develops your skills across four key areas of practice: production, direction, content development and digital media design. We offer grounding in traditional skill sets – including script writing, production design, direction, filming and sound recording – alongside training in coding and programming, VR and AR, 360 video editing, interactive design and AI.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Environmental Architecture focuses on the co-dependence of life forms and earth systems as well as the co-existence of alternative concepts of landscapes, environments and territories as they are expressed by different societies

If the planet has a design problem, what do the terms ‘design’ or ‘architecture’ mean when they are applied to phenomena as varied as oceans and atmospheres, or to farmlands and deserts? The intensity of environmental change calls for new forms of knowledge production based in propositional thinking, especially design-based methods.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The Fashion MA programme asks for a disruptive critical approach leading to new aesthetics and responses about the practice and industry of fashion.

We look to create a new generation of thought leaders/designers; future fashion designers with a combined skill-set of designer-led innovation, underpinned with that critical approach and collaboration situated within new technologies, offering specific fashion insights and understanding of new engineering, digital and scientific paradigms.

A shift in authorship, materiality, economic structure and communication allows new patterns of work and aesthetics. Equally, integrity, ingenuity and play are essential within this new fashion practice.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Information Experience Design (IED) students design experiences to communicate information, creating installations and interventions using all senses, modes and media, including sound and moving image.

We approach social and technological systems critically and work across art and design. We’re grounded in theories and research methods from science and philosophy.

Creative practitioners today can no longer afford to be constrained by traditional specialisms and outdated definitions of art, design, science and technology. We take a post-digital and post-disciplinary approach, working across these areas to undertake advanced research and practice, using a wide range of media, materials and methods.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Building on the success of the world-renowned Vehicle Design programme at the RCA, Intelligent Mobility places transportation design in the context of an increasingly complex environment.

Our approach is to establish a critical learning environment in which projects and research focus on innovation and disruptive design outcomes. We encourage a design-led, highly personal and ideological approach where key themes such as vehicle aesthetics, sustainability, emerging markets and human cultural factors can be met with impactful and relevant design proposals.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The programme will challenge you to formulate your own rigorous, critically independent responses to conceptualising and making interiors.

This is often undertaken via the reworking of existing structures, the creation of temporal installations and the formation of permanent interventions using space, objects and materials.

We offer you a unique context of interdisciplinary, studio- and workshop-oriented study, as well as opportunities for live projects in conjunction with specific industry-partners.We have a staff of leading academics, practising designers, architects and theorists, all of whom are internationally renowned and innovators in their fields. In your second year, you'll also be assigned a practice mentor – a professional interior designer – who you’ll meet four times a year... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Jewellery and metal both play a significant role in all cultures. The growing importance and interdisciplinary character of our distinctive discipline within the arts gives jewellery and metal a special vibrancy and relevance. The work that emerges from our programme reflects an expanded practice that views objects as an embodiment of thought.

We seek to question what materials mean to us, how we engage with them and use them to define our daily interactions with the world.

As a programme and philosophy we are responsive to rapidly changing social and cultural landscapes, and we draw on history and technology in nurturing intellectual and creative skills. The rich and extensive bodies of knowledge associated with object-making and jewellery underpin an approach that is outward-looking, open to the wider and diverse discourses surrounding materialism, semiotics, narratives and commodity objects, all of which connect us and the object to contemporary life.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The Painting MA programme approaches the practice of painting as a self-reflexive, critical activity that draws on a wealth of varied historical, material and conceptual accomplishments related to the medium and its objects. We aim to provide a platform on which to engage with current issues and debates surrounding the challenges and location of painting as a part of contemporary art practice.

The curriculum is designed to develop your professional practice, research and studio work, and how you present that work and your practice professionally. We want you to reflect upon and play out what kind of artist you want to be, with the ultimate aim of enabling a sustainable and meaningful practice as a professional practitioner. The Painting programme is a world leader in research and practice, and we provide excellent teaching by leading practitioners, writers and curators.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

In this expanded field, the histories of media, craft, mechanical and digital (re)production are all open to question. Embracing very different ways of thinking and making, we engage with the digital and physical circulation of images. We explore the differences of virtual space vs hard copy, questioning how shifts in the register of different media affect our lives.

You may use archives, image and text, appropriation, and work in all media, from books to installations, webpages to hard copies. Why, in the context of digital ubiquity, is there still interest in direct material engagement with ink and paper? What value does the hand-drawn trace have in our digital age? Are there already too many images in the world? Why make more?... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

The study of sculpture is ever-expanding and includes object-making, public art and social practices, site and space, performance, sound, film and video. Rather than only considering the specific manifestations of sculpture, we prefer to think of it as a methodology from which to progress the production of art.

The Sculpture programme provides a structure that incorporates both individual and group tutorials, as well as seminars, a dedicated lecture programme and the opportunity to take part in external projects. Critical reviews of your work will be conducted consistently throughout the year, and we invite external visitors to contribute to these discussions when they become School-wide.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Service Design is the application of design practice to services and experiences. Service design solves problems and transforms the human experience of businesses and industry as well as developing impactful solutions for complex social issues, better public services and citizen centric policy.

The RCA Service Design MA programme is internationally renowned as a pioneer in the development of service design with graduating students leaving to work inside transport, telecommunications, financial services and retail companies, leading consultancies, government departments and international organisations. The course examines the complex cultural, technological and systemic issues facing businesses and governments to create new services for now and the future.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Textiles at the RCA is a multi-faceted discipline, and we work at the creative interface between materials, making and meaning. Our focus is on new knowledge that impacts many sectors, exploring new territories for tomorrow’s textiles specialist.

New fabrication methods and specialist textile skills offer fresh possibilities for the world and require us to constantly reconsider our practice, generating a culture of experimentation and creative possibility throughout the activities of the programme.

We encourage our students to develop an agility in their thinking and creative capability with colour and materials. The programme is an exploration of the creative, technological, cultural, commercial and sustainable contexts of textiles, and you’ll develop innovative ideas that challenge the understanding of the practice and discipline of textiles. By graduation, you’ll be fluent in the language of materials, able to influence the tangible and intangible materiality of our lives across a range of sectors.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Offered jointly by the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the MA creates critical histories through artefacts and our interactions with them, whether in design, performance, photography or material culture more broadly. We see the history of design and material culture as interdisciplinary, and offer teaching and research expertise from the fifteenth century to the contemporary, exploring areas such as geography, performance studies and design research.

V&A/RCA History of Design MA embraces history that is public-facing, experimental and committed to academic excellence, connected to communities in public museums and art schools. We see history as practice-based and bring a distinctly global outlook to historical questions, placing local histories in comparative context and tracing diverse, global networks through material culture.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Visual Communication MA at the RCA provides the opportunity to challenge, transform and situate one’s creative practice in relevance to global audiences. It expands the contribution of visual communication through an approach that values agency, experimentation and critical making. The MA programme has a long history of critically examining the place and importance of visual communication in relation to culture and society within an interdisciplinary environment.

As noted by our students, 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 artist’s skill set is transferable beyond the sole confines of the visual and also includes sound, code, text, space, event and experience.... [-]

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for five consecutive years (2015-2019) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

MA Writing provides a unique opportunity to develop high-level writing, research, and analytical skills in one of the world’s most dynamic art schools. The programme combines different learning models — from workshops to seminars, group crits to personal tutorials — during which time you’ll work with many different practitioners, amongst them critics, poets, and editors.

The programme is committed to a broad definition of arts writing, from journalism and criticism to creative non-fiction, and for a wide-ranging audience, too, from the mainstream to the academic. The practice and discipline of writing are essential to our teaching, as well as engagement with other disciplines and the broad range of arts, design, and culture. Our programme encourages both individual and collaborative writing, thereby allowing you to develop your own ‘voice’ while benefiting from working productively with others.... [-]