The Animation programme is a world leader in practice and research, with a commitment to broadening the understanding of our complex discipline. Established over 30 years ago, the programme has an international reputation that places it at the forefront of the discipline. Within the programme, there are three distinct pathways: Documentary Animation, Experimental Animation and Narrative Animation, one of which students select as part of their application.

The programme’s location within a visually sophisticated, multidisciplinary art and design school, rather than a film school, is crucial in the development of creative and critical thinking, research skills and expanded discipline expertise that’s applied to ideas, styles, genres and technological approaches. Both the MA and research degrees attract artists and makers from a broad background of disciplines: science, maths, architecture, literature, art history, computing and fine art, as well as communication.... [-]

Architecture at the RCA sets out to inspire design innovation. The programme expands the possibilities of architecture and its agency in the world by encouraging a speculative, independent and critical ethos among its students. The two-year long 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.

For students looking to develop a distinctive and innovative voice in the field and a unique chance to collaborate with future leaders in other art and design disciplines including photography, sculpture, visual communications and animation, the RCA offers an ideal environment.... [-]

The spirit of Ceramics & Glass at the RCA springs from the heart of those media, and a belief in the transformative power of material thinking, research and making to enrich our world in imaginative and meaningful ways. The programme is a site for contemporary discourse where personal concerns and global perspectives intersect. We seek those with a passion to extend the possibilities and perspectives of ceramics and glass within and beyond traditional limitations, informed by their rich provenance of materials and practices.

The Ceramics & Glass MA at the RCA provides outstanding opportunities to develop a dynamic, informed and connected practice in a study environment that embraces diversity and depth. We believe in interrogating practices and challenging conventions.... [-]

With a global urban population of 4 billion and 28 megacities, urban life is experiencing momentous change. New social groups are emerging, populations are ageing, family units are extending and dispersing, work is becoming casualised and whole communities have moved online. At the same time, dangerous new social divides are appearing on the periphery of cities, between different cultures, and now also between different generations.

Many of the models used to explain, design, develop and manage cities have resisted change. More recently however, new possibilities are emerging and their consequences promise to be profound: modern social movements, automated building supply chains, technology platforms, driverless transport and logistics, distributed water and energy infrastructure – all will radically reshape the city's fundamental building blocks.... [-]

Established 25 years ago and led by Professor Victoria Walsh, the MA Curating Contemporary Art (CCA) programme is recognised both as an international leader in its field and for its commitment to collaborative group project-based work that integrates theory and practice throughout the two years of the curriculum. For 2017/18, we are introducing new areas of focus in response to the expanded field of curating and the widening professional opportunities for curatorial practice and research in a global context. These will include:

Exhibitions and Programming practice focus on curating, commissioning and programming within the physical and defined setting of the gallery/museum space providing a critical, theoretical and practical understanding of the histories and opportunities within this form of curatorial practice.... [-]

The MA programme provides students who have already acquired knowledge and skills in various areas of design with an academic framework in which to continue to develop their own professional direction. The course takes a pluralistic view of the students’ ideas and interests and there is an atmosphere that encourages experimental, groundbreaking work, encouraging a critical approach and a questioning of accepted practices.

The programme has a matrix structure comprised of horizontal teaching units, called Platforms, and a set of vertical themes, which cut across the Platforms. In the first year, students undergo an orientation period in the autumn term, and a diagnostic period in the spring term, experiencing the different design perspectives of the Platforms and the different themes through a set of project briefs. In the summer term, students elect a Platform to follow for the remainder of their studies, underpinned by one of the themes (or a theme of their own choosing). Each Platform is led by two tutors (who are practicing designers), and each theme is led by either a senior tutor or the head of programme, who work together to choose the content and area of focus they wish to concentrate on for the autumn and spring terms, and engage with the students through assigning briefs, and meeting with them on a weekly basis. In addition, students are taught a set of methods and tools, such a critical thinking, user-facing methods, that will underpin their work. Second-year students are expected to produce... [-]

Digital Direction is a new 240-credit, 15-month Master’s programme starting in September 2017.

Digital Direction addresses media and storytelling in the digital era, assessing emerging issues associated with contemporary digital communication and the creative economy, training new creative leaders who are responsive to continually changing contexts, infrastructures and technologies and engendering a new wave of creative leadership. Graduates will develop a deep understanding of critical and experimental communication/media production, creation and design practices, and through applied innovation will address current and future contexts.

The programme prepares students to evolve and lead new approaches to media and storytelling through predictive innovation, enabled by rapidly changing cultural and industrial practices, plus uses of, and developments in, digital technologies. Centring on the interrelated domains of broadcasting, film and experience/brand, the programme addresses knowledge and skills gaps in four key areas of practice: production, direction, content development/making/writing and communication/digital media design.... [-]

The intensity of our carbon economy has left the planet with a design problem. No matter where we live or work, the environments we move through are constructed. There is nothing on the planet that human beings haven’t touched. 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 or atmospheres, or to farmland and deserts?

The intensity of environmental change calls for new forms of knowledge production based on propositional thinking, especially design-based methods. The design is a crucial tool in both the imagination and negotiation of alternative futures.

Environmental Architecture is a new 15-month, project-based MA programme exploring the future of landscapes, environments and ecosystems. It will focus on the co-dependence of life forms and earth systems as well as the co-existence of alternative concepts of landscapes, environments and ecosystems as they are expressed by different societies. The programme is field-focused. Students will have the opportunity to engage with live projects in sites of rapid and complex environmental change. The programme emphasises comparative, multi-scalar approaches to design research. Students will familiarise themselves with anthropological and ethnographic research methods, and new systems measuring, classifying and capturing data including computational sensing and imaging. Classes and workshops from experts in physical and social sciences complement studio teaching and provide quantitative input to projects as required.... [-]

Remember that you are unique and have the vision to share – listen to that vision and allow it to inform your time as a designer. The contemporary is full of noise and so unless you free-fall a little in ways that you are able to, this vision gets clouded fast. There is a sharp reality about the economics of our time that creates expectations and demands speed, or conclusions that arrive too fast. But this is your place, your time and this is what you must respond to, to enable growth of the new. You can be the new liquid society that runs through the fingers of the big players – mercurial and magical.

A fearless approach to creative expression, fanatical technique and an informed professionalism is what we look for and encourage on this programme. The focus is towards strengthening this spirit of exploration through unique expertise and a polymathic debate with modern global awareness. We further encourage a strong work ethic across a broad variety of personally driven, industry-oriented and cross-programme design projects.... [-]

Remember that you are unique, with unique visions to tell – listen to that and allow that to inform your time. And yet times are full of noise and so unless you free-fall a little in ways that you are able to, this gets clouded fast. There is also a sharp reality about the economics of our time that makes our expectations and demands for a speed and conclusion and arrival too fast…

But this is your place, your time and this is what you must respond to, to enable growth of the new, as you can be this new liquid society that runs through the fingers of the big players... mercurial and magical...

A fearless approach to creative expression, fanatical technique and an informed professionalism is what we look for and encourage on this programme. The focus is towards strengthening this spirit of exploration through unique expertise and a polymathic debate with modern global awareness. We further encourage a strong work ethic across a broad variety of personally driven, industry-oriented and cross-programme design projects.... [-]

Global Innovation Design (GID) is a joint Master's programme between the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. It is a unique, transnational Master’s design initiative that brings together three major centres of design, culture, enterprise and industry: Europe, North America and Asia.

GID is a multidisciplinary, multicultural and multinational design programme awarding both an MA from the Royal College of Art and an MSc from Imperial College London to graduates. GID offers an engaging global curriculum and provides powerful cultural experiences crafted to nurture innovators and designers who are prepared to take on the changing needs of the enterprise in the twenty-first century.... [-]

The V&A/RCA History of Design programme is internationally recognised as the leading centre for the postgraduate study of the history of design and material culture. As jointly offered by two world-leading centres for scholarship and creativity, the RCA and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), we teach and research cultural, social, economic, political and technological history through artefacts and our interactions with them. Projects and expertise range across global geographies, from the early fifteenth century to the present day.

For 2018/9, we are offering three pathways within the MA: design and material culture; performance and photography.

V&A/RCA History of Design is based on the principle that researching, analysing and communicating history through artefacts is a practice-based discipline and can play an important public role. We embrace the history that is public-facing, experimental and committed to scholarly excellence, as befits our location in the public museum and the art school. We bring a distinctly global outlook to historical questions, whether this means placing local histories in comparative context or tracing global networks through material culture.... [-]

MA Intelligent Mobility is a new 15-month, 240 credit programme that will succeed the existing MA Vehicle Design. It will be launched in 2017/18 alongside the Intelligent Mobility Lab, a new multidisciplinary research centre dedicated to the future of transportation design, systems and urban mobility, led by Director and inaugural Chair in Intelligent Mobility Professor Dale Harrow. MA Intelligent Mobility aims to place the RCA in the vanguard of the ‘third age’ of automotive design.

The MA Intelligent Mobility programme will comprise two distinct specialisms: Automotive Transitions and Urban Mobility. Automotive Transitions students will focus on using design thinking to develop innovative forms of transportation, such as autonomous vehicles. Urban Mobility students will focus on designing the systems and frameworks that enable people to move through hyper-connected cities. The programme will also acknowledge and explore solutions for the 80 percent of people in developing or emerging economies who do not have access to transport.... [-]

Jewellery & Metal (J&M) forms part of the School of Material. Within this context, we are committed to exploring the rich and diverse field of adornment and object culture. We encourage an open-minded approach that in principle embraces all materials. But it is metal that constitutes the technological core of our subject and we believe that a deepening understanding of the metal elements is key in these developments; the Periodic Table is our reference in expanding our activity within the subjects of jewellery and metalwork.

The attitude of Jewellery & Metal has shifted from a purely object-centred focus to a wider scope, questioning and exploring issues centred on the human condition. We are responsive to the rapidly changing social and cultural landscape and draw on history and technology in nurturing intellectual and creative skills directed at understanding and pushing forward jewellery and objects of human making. The rich and extensive bodies of knowledge associated with object-making and jewellery underpin an approach that is outward-looking, open to the wider discourse on commodity objects, connecting to contemporary life.... [-]

Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) is a double Masters that has been run jointly with Imperial College London for over 35 years. It is a leading-edge, creative product development course that involves experimentation, design, engineering and enterprise activities. In multidisciplinary teams or as individuals, participants work at the centre of the complex, demanding projects with an emphasis on prototyping and proving propositions. The programme is external facing and encourages all to tackle important real-world issues involving advanced technical, design and social parameters. We believe that design is a verb, not a noun.

The MA Interior Design programme engages its participants in exploring emergent ideas and issues concerning distinct aspects of the design of the interior. This incorporates research, practice and making work that explores the diversity of human occupation in numerous environments, extending from the room to the city. The programme encourages the view that the interior is an interface between its occupants and the built environment and it supports the notion that the interior is an agent for social change.

The programme values speculation, analysis, rigour and provocation with regards to the thinking and making of all aspects of the design of the interior. It challenges its participants to formulate their own rigorous critically independent responses to these fundamental concerns. This is often undertaken via the reworking of existing structures, the creation of temporal installations and the formation of permanent interventions, all involving the construction and communication of particular spatial identities using space, objects and materials.... [-]

The Writing MA programme in the School of Humanities provides unique opportunities for postgraduate students to develop high-level writing, research and analytical skills in the setting of one of the world’s most dynamic art schools. Combining workshop models of teaching and learning, and ‘live’ projects with leading arts organisations, the MA provides the skills required for a successful career in the arts or a research degree. For 2018/19, we are introducing some exciting new areas of specialisation within the programme.

The programme is committed to the idea that writing – of all kinds – is a creative practice that requires imagination as well as good literary skills and expert knowledge. Students on the MA are presented with many opportunities to develop and apply the skills required by various writing formats from the review and catalogue essay to fiction and other forms of speculation. The unique structure of the programme allows for specialisation and the freedom to explore novel approaches to writing.... [-]

Led by Professor David Rayson, the Painting programme is committed to broadening the understanding of the discipline in all its forms. Paint is a fluid material and ideas surrounding what painting is, has been, and can be are being continually reflected upon, and actively explored.

Through the many learning and teaching experiences the programme offers, students and staff rigorously, critically and supportively engage in personal tutorials, group critiques and presentations. These discussions and critical forums take place in the Painting studios, across the College, through visits to galleries and collaborations with our partner institutions, and during visits to major exhibitions both in this country and abroad.... [-]

Led by Professor Olivier Richon, the Photography programme at the RCA aims to provide a critical and educational environment in which students can develop as artists with photography at the core of their practice.

Our approach to photography relates to practices and theories of contemporary art, rather than to those of media and communication. We have a fluid approach to image making; whether still or moving, analogue or digital, the photographic image is for us a visual form that aims to be thoughtful as well as playful: an allegorical and thoroughly visual form.

The programme understands photography as a medium with no fixed identity. This disregard for a fixed essence is photography’s strength: no aesthetic purity but a multiplicity of rhetorical forms used for the creation of fact, fiction and fantasy.... [-]

Led by Professor Jo Stockham, the Print programme is a two-year specialist MA course. Renamed from Printmaking in 2015, this change signals that the study of the expanded field of Print is equal to the making of prints as a series of medium-specific choices. We explore the mediated image approached through a range of intellectual approaches provided by a diverse team of tutors, all practising artists.

Access to world-class technical facilities in all print media means that we are able to both explore and expand the field of Print addressing the constant interplay between thinking and making, the image and technology. Students from a wide variety of backgrounds choose to study with us because of their interest in questions, which include, the nature of the copy, diagramming, appropriation, the materiality of the image, the politics of print and print as a collaborative practice.... [-]

Led by Reader in Time-based Media Jordan Baseman, the Sculpture programme establishes a framework that encompasses the material, historical and theoretical conditions of sculpture where students are supported to develop their own practice.

Sculpture includes object-making, public art and social practices, site and space, performance, sound, film and video: but rather than consider the specific manifestations of sculpture we prefer to think of our position 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 a dedicated seminar programme. Critical reviews of student work are conducted consistently throughout the year, at the end of each term and we invite external visitors to contribute to these discussions when they become School-wide. Our students are eager, determined, inquisitive, ambitious – actively defining their own terms in regards to the ideas and actualities of Sculpture.... [-]

Service Design has become the new frontier for designers who want to make a difference at scale, and in so doing advance the discipline of design. The service sector represents almost 80 percent of the advanced economies, and in recent years the role of design in transforming both public and private sector services has become widely recognised. The programme at the Royal College of Art is the leading specialist service design programme worldwide and with around 80 students and researchers and 10–12 live projects at any time, it’s almost certainly the largest dedicated service design studio globally.

Students emerging from the programme are finding immediate employment as service designers as industry and governments seek to transform their customer and citizen experience. We’ve just enhanced our programme by creating three new platforms for service design. The first is Service Innovation, which focuses on developing citizen and customer-centric solutions to address immediate social, cultural and economic challenges. The second, Envision, not only speculates on the future of healthcare, education, retail, banking, transportation, but uses future forecasting techniques for society, culture and technology to design service experiences for the next decade and beyond. The final platform, Public Service and Policy, brings together social and political science with design to transform public service provision as well as government policy... [-]

Textiles offer uniquely fluid, flexible and infinitely adaptable ways of questioning, examining and solving the some of the societal challenges that face us. This powerful agency is more valuable and vital than ever before as these challenges become increasingly complex.

Textiles at the RCA is a multi-faceted discipline and our staff and students work at the creative interface between materials, making and meaning. Our focus is innovation that impacts and spans across many sectors exploring new territories for the twenty-first-century Textiles specialist.

New materials, new ways of making and new ways of experiencing our man-made world require us to constantly reconsider and question our activities, generating a culture of creative restlessness throughout the activities of the programme, which include 4* research, a growing PGR community and a dynamic masters course.... [-]

Visual Communication as a discipline is undergoing a major shift in both its vocational positioning and intellectual relevance. At the Royal College of Art, the programme has a long history that has radically examined the place of visual communication in relation to culture and society, while championing the importance of an interdisciplinary approach. The programme offers three pathways of study: Experimental Communication, Graphic Design and Illustration.

The pathways are interrelated and structured around the discipline of visual communication to facilitate well-informed risk-taking and experimentation from a grounded position of subject knowledge and understanding. Pathways are delivered in subject clusters (critical thinking) supported by shared workshops (critical making) and delivered by staff who are either advanced practitioners or active researchers engaged in both the core and margins of communication practice.... [-]

IED is set within the vibrantly mixed studios of the RCA’s School of Communication, each of its pathways with a specialist 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. Our students and researchers work alongside the School’s graphic designers, animators and illustrators, and in interdisciplinary teams with other RCA programmes as well as external scientists, companies, architects and academics.

IED develops a mindset as well as a skillset. No specific technical skills are required; applicants come from diverse backgrounds in design, science, fine art, engineering and technology, 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.... [-]