Contemporary Crafts BA(Hons) Degree

Course outline

Level 1

• Introduction to Crafts
• Process and Materials

Level 2

• Designer-Maker: Audience and Identity
• Designer-Maker: Professional Engagement
• Craft Connections
• Professional Contexts

Level 3

• External Brief
• Self-negotiated Project
• Contextual Research Project

Tell me more about the BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts course

On our Contemporary Crafts degree course you'll gain a solid grasp of the core principles of design through the manipulation of materials, as well as a broad range of related craft skills - helping you to develop your creative ideas.

Through live projects with businesses, galleries and community groups, you'll gain insight and make useful industry contacts, while lectures, demonstrations and inspirational field trips will really get you thinking and help you discover your own artistic voice.

By choosing to study for a degree in Contemporary Crafts at Falmouth you will:

• Benefit from being taught by friendly and approachable staff who are experts in their respective fields.
• Develop a wide range of skills using traditional and contemporary techniques, including maquette making and computer-aided design (CAD).
• Be based at the award-winning Design Centre, which boasts an array of world-class facilities.
• Have the chance to exhibit your work at shows, including the Milan Furniture Fair, Chelsea Flower Show and New Designers.
• Have the opportunity to work collaboratively with students from other creative disciplines.
• Have opportunities to acquire real experience working as a designer-maker developing designs for small-scale production or individual objects.

How is the course taught?

This full-time course is delivered through study blocks. Project work is supported by lectures, demonstrations, field trips, professional experience and focus groups, seminars and tutorials. You'll develop peer and self-evaluation skills, which will be used in critical, conceptual, productive and professional capacities.

The course operates on a basis of continuous assessment with no formal qualifications. Assessment includes project work, essays, seminar presentations and a dissertation and two exhibitions in your final year.

Assessment

• Visual, verbal and written assignments
• Final year dissertation and exhibitions

Facilities

Our Design Centre and Learning Resource Centres include:

• Latest rapid prototyping machines
• Laser cutters
• Five-axis milling machine
• Kilns for ceramics and glass
• Purpose built studios and workshops
• ICT Teaching Suite
• 17,000-title TV and film library

Projects

University College Falmouth is working closely with the Design Council on Design of the Times (DOTT) Cornwall; a programme where professional designers work. with stakeholders and communities to tackle social, economic and environmental issues from the bottom up.

Our students and graduates get the chance to work alongside senior design professionals on DOTT projects as part of internships and work placements.

Guest lectures

Recent guest lecturers have included:

Indonesian designer, Singgih S Kartono, whose wooden radio won the Brit Insurance Design Awards 2009. Singgih gave a lecture about his inspirational product, renewable resources and sustainable local industry.

Inspirational talk by the creator of the wooden radio

Professorial lecture series

Falmouth's Professorial lecture series aims to produce an engaging and challenging public programme that stimulates the intellectual curiosity of our staff, students and alumni, our research collaborators, our industry partners, our local communities and other supporters. Recent lectures relevant to students in the School of Design include Edward Barber, founding partner of BarberOsgerby.

Edward Barber

Process - craft meets technology

Founding partner of BarberOsgerby, Edward and his partner, Jay Osgerby, were recently named Royal Designers for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts and their work is in permanent collections at the Design Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Since forming their company in 1996, Barber and Osgerby have collaborated on designing products and furniture as BarberOsgerby and architectural projects for clients such as Stella McCartney as Universal Design Studio.

A video of Edward Barber's lecture can be viewed online here

Answers and advice about the course

If you have any queries about the course please visit our HelpMe Forum

HelpMe Forum: BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts

For further information about BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts at University College Falmouth, please email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 255763.

Open Design: UCF for design tutors

At our first Open Design event in February 2010, Heads of Department and Pathway Leaders from Foundation level courses around the UK spent the day with design staff and students at University College Falmouth, learning more about our facilities and courses.

Click here for more information and to register for the next Open Design event

Career opportunities

Our graduates work in highly regarded design studios, set up their own workshops, or work for community arts projects. They have produced objects for public or private commission and exhibitions, as well as designing and creating one-off pieces or products for mass, or small-scale, production. Career opportunities include:

• Self-employment/freelance work
• Employment in craft-related businesses
• Community & public arts projects
• Teaching
• Postgraduate study

Entry requirements

A minimum of 220 UCAS points, equivalent Level 3 qualifications or relevant experience. You may be required to submit some work to help us decide who to interview. Successful applicants are generally those with the strongest portfolios, demonstrating experimentation, technical ability and understanding of the art and design process.

Please see our How to Apply page for more information.

For further information about BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts at University College Falmouth, please email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 255763.

Interview and selection process

All applicants invited to interview on the strength of their UCAS form. Applicants will be interviewed in small groups with their portfolios and sketchbooks by a panel which will normally consist of 2 Academic members of staff and 1 student. If you are invited to interview you will be given more detailed information about the interview before the event so you are fully prepared. There will be an opportunity to tour the campus and studios and to talk to current students about their experiences. There will be an opportunity for a question and answer session with the programme leader or another member of the academic team; parents and friends are warmly welcomed to this part of the session. You should expect to be here for around 3 hours.

You will need to come prepared with a portfolio of work, sketchbooks, a copy of an essay of several pages in length (which you will leave behind). Portfolio and sketchbooks should demonstrate the ability to investigate and develop a range of ideas. Drawing and visual investigation are particularly important. Your use of a variety of media and investigation of production methods and skills - not necessarily specific to the award you have applied for - is also encouraged. We do not recommend bringing large/bulky 3 dimensional pieces - we would prefer to see photographs of this kind of work if you have it, though small scale work is welcome.

Interviews will be held on 18 and 20 January, 22, 24 and 29 February, 2, 7, and 9 March 2012 only. Morning sessions will begin at 9.30am and afternoon sessions at 1.30pm.

Location: Tremough Campus

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