Level 4 – HNC in Art & Design

Course Overview

This engaging and vibrant one-year full-time program places a strong focus on acquiring and honing skills relevant to the ever-evolving creative and visual arts field, all geared towards enhancing your job prospects and career advancement opportunities. The curriculum centres on fine art and accommodates students transitioning from a Foundation diploma, a BTEC Diploma or A-levels, as well as mature learners seeking to retrain in the creative and visual arts domain. The Arts Practice course provides a platform for students from diverse backgrounds to explore and produce, utilizing the skills and insights they gain to uncover and nurture their unique talents and strengths within a creative practice.

How will I be marked?

Students undergo evaluation through a variety of diverse techniques, encompassing examinations, coursework, Project Based Learning, presentations, exhibitions, practical tasks, role-playing, and case studies. The specific assessment method depends on the demands of each individual study unit. Throughout the course, you can expect to receive feedback in oral, written, and online forms, aimed at enhancing and monitoring your performance. The course places a significant emphasis on practical aspects, yet it also requires strong academic skills. We employ Project Based Learning (PBL) methodologies that provide you with practical, industry-relevant experiential learning opportunities.

Progression and next steps

Successfully finishing the HNC Art and Design course can open doors to further advancement, where you may have the opportunity to pursue an additional year of study leading to the Level 5 HND in Art and Design program. The course is designed to facilitate students in establishing connections within the industry through an extensive schedule of masterclasses, practical workshops, and industry visits. The instructional team, all of whom are actively involved in the creative arts, are available to provide guidance and support for those looking to enter the job market or continue their education in the realm of creative industries. This program will equip you for either the possibility of progressing to HND/degree-level studies or for seeking employment across the wide spectrum of opportunities within the visual arts field.

Modules/Units

• Unit 1: Professional Development – Core

The creative industries are always changing; in response to development in technology,
social change and cultural conditions. These, in turn, influence the professions and roles that are required within the industries. Through this unit, students will explore
the development of the professions within the creative industries and the roles that make up those professions.

• Unit 2: Contextual Studies – Core

Contextual Studies provides an historical, cultural, and theoretical framework to allow us to make sense of art and design, as well as to consider how they may help us to
understand the wider world.

This unit is designed to introduce students to key cultural developments, practices and movements related to the history of art, design, visual and popular culture since 1900.
Emphasis will be placed upon developing a broad knowledge of art and design contexts, considering the technological, economic, social and aesthetic causes which have, and
continue to, inform our understanding of art and design within the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Topics included in this unit are semiotics, values and tastes, subcultures, advertising, modernism, postmodernism, hyper modernism, gender politics within art and design,
materiality and immateriality.

• Unit 3: Individual Project – Core

Within the broad context of the creative industries there are many separate disciplines/specialisms. The main purpose of this unit is to provide students with the opportunity to discover personal strengths and inform independent practice.

This unit is designed to develop the skills to apply creative practice in response to a theme and topics set by Pearson. Students will carry out and apply the knowledge and
skills, developed through other areas of their studies, to complete and present an individual project. Wherever possible the unit will simulate working studio conditions,
which will enhance and develop professional industry skills and practice.

• Unit 4: Techniques & Processes – Core

Although the creative industries are a very broad sector, including many different forms of art and design practice, there are many techniques and processes that are at the core
of these diverse practices. The skills and techniques that underpin art and design practice are the key to developing a strong personal approach to the development of
ideas and execution of work.

Through this unit students will explore the critical facets of art and design practice that will enable any project. Through the development of skills associated with brief analysis
and writing, research, experimentation an testing, and presentation students will begin the process of establishing

• Unit 15: Media Practices

Contemporary art and design practice has moved beyond the traditional media of pencil, paint, clay, etc. Today’s practices may engage with a more modern definition of ‘mediaa’ which includes moving image (film/video), sound, digital forms, and much more.

As the practices of art and design have embraced diverse forms of media, there has been a convergence of different forms of practice. Contemporary practitioners, working in media, will regularly combine different methods, techniques, and processes,

This unit requires students to select appropriate media practices to utilise alongside or within their chosen discipline. Whether this be the selection of audio/visual materials to enhance a graphic design piece or webpage, or the use of audio within an art installation or fashion show, this unit will allow students to apply research, planning and application of a chosen media practice. In order to correctly utilise and apply media practices, students will need to consider the purpose and outcomes of the medium they have selected and be able to apply these practices appropriately to their work

• Unit 16: Material Practices

This unit aims to introduce students to wide range of creative disciplines associated with material exploration.

Twenty-first century art and design incorporates new technologies, new materials and processes as well as encapsulating traditional methods and crafts. The way in which materials are used in the conceptual development, through experimentation and in the production of finished work, may be both a method and a means. In this context, an understanding of material properties and their potential to drive different forms of production is critical to the development of coherent practice.

This unit encourages students to explore materials and form with a view to developing individual approaches to material practice. There is an emphasis on the development of a clear process and testing, through experimentation, to identify potential for future development.

• Unit 22: Printmaking

Since its development in China, around the start of the second century, printmaking has remained a vibrant form of art and communication. Whether through small run woodcut prints or mass-produced etchings, the range of techniques available in printmaking has meant that it retains a unique position within the creative industries.

This unit will allow students to explore a wide range of processes and practices in printmaking, as well as applying these practices to realise personal outcomes through an experimental approach.

On successful completion of this unit students will be able to understand the historical and contemporary practices associated with printmaking, and through contextualised visits to professional studios and commercial workshops, be able to apply printmaking processes to their specific area of study.

• Unit 26: Darkroom Techniques

In the digital age where notions of ‘fast’, ‘convenient’, and ‘automatic’ are promoted, the importance and influence of fundamental techniques in photography is often overlooked. Indeed, Photoshop emerged out of traditional methods of image control in the darkroom, where ‘wet photography’ techniques enable photographers to create and manipulate images through the control of processes and materials.

This unit aims to equip students with skills, knowledge and understanding to create and manipulate analogue black and white images in the darkroom. It offers students the opportunity to recognise and achieve professional standards in technical application and in the quality of final print outcomes

Level 3 Diploma in Art & Design subject with DMM profile

£5225 per year

The decisions on applications for HE candidates are made by curriculum staff after interview, audition or portfolio review have taken place.