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The Illustration and Animation MA aims to expand the digital and physical knowledge of your craft, helping you find your own ‘voice’ and style.
Year of entry
Location
Coventry University (Coventry)
Study mode
Full-time
Part-time
Duration
1 year full-time
2 years part-time
16-24 months (with professional experience)
Course code
AHT037
Start date
September 2025
January 2026
May 2026
At Coventry University, we continuously review the courses we offer to ensure we reflect industry-relevant emerging best practice and technology. As a result, this course is undergoing continuous improvement assessment and will be launched with a renewed curriculum starting in September 2025. Module content and titles will be updated. Course title, learning outcomes and assessments may also change. We expect our new curriculum to be fully updated by January 2025. Please return to this page to see the final course details.
If you are seeking to enhance your professional portfolio and understanding of emerging practice, we offer a vibrant, creative community in which to progress your personal research and practice, in order to make your own unique contribution to illustrative and animated visual communication.
You’ll also be encouraged to develop a unique visual signature and a compelling visual voice that will help you to effectively communicate with intended audiences - both are essential for success in professional practice.
The Coventry Degree Show is an annual event to celebrate and showcase our graduating students’ work.
Explore the work of our talented studentsThe course explores illustration, publishing, photography, image generation and animation. We will help you achieve a deeper understanding of your role as a visual interpreter, the importance of adapting to market needs and to a developing field.
Through practical exploration and reflection of digital and traditionally physical forms, you will develop an appropriate synergy between practice and theory, establishing your specialist signature of work. Your final project will be tailored to your own area of professional practice and your personal creative passion, culminating with an exhibition of your work in the end-of-year MA Degree Show.
The professional experience opportunity2 enables you to apply for an optional professional experience in semester 1, which, upon successfully securing an opportunity, will extend the duration of your master’s to either 16, 20 or 24 months. The professional experience provides an opportunity for you to develop expertise and experience in your chosen field with the aim of enhancing your employability.
Please note that the optional professional experience modules incur an additional tuition fee3, which for 1 semester of professional experience is £1,333.33, for 2 semesters of professional experience is £2,666.67, and for 3 semesters of professional experience is £4,000.
Professional experience may also be subject to additional costs, visa requirements being met, subject to availability and/or competitive application. Professional experience opportunities are not guaranteed but you will benefit from the support of our Talent Team in trying to find and secure an opportunity. Find out more about the professional experience option.
We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated.
Teaching methods include:
This course can be offered on a part-time basis. While we would like to give you all the information about our part-time offering here, it is tailored for each course each year depending on the number of part-time applicants. Therefore, the part-time teaching arrangements vary. Request further information about part-time study.
The number of full-time contact hours may vary from semester to semester, however, on average, it is likely to be around eight contact hours per week in the first year. The contact hours may be made up of a combination of face-to-face teaching, individual and group tutorials, and online classes and tutorials.
Additionally, you will be expected to undertake significant self-directed study of approximately 24 hours each week, depending on the demands of individual modules. In these hours you will be applying that knowledge to your ongoing assignments. Every student is different and manage workloads differently so this can vary across students and times of year.
Part of university life is undertaking self-directed learning (SDL). Across the course of the week you will have non ‘taught’ time that allows you to work independently to apply the skills you have learnt in taught or facilitated sessions to your projects or assignment briefs. This is particularly important in the school of art and design as it allows you to put into practice making in workshop and studio spaces.
This self-directed learning allows you to monitor and self-evaluate your development and how best to manage this time to best impact your creative work. SDL is key to designing and making as it is a process that takes discipline and repetition. This mode of learning under pins our community of practice approach.
The contact hours may be made up of a combination of face-to-face teaching, individual and group tutorials, and online classes and tutorials.
As an innovative and enterprising institution, the university may seek to utilise emerging technologies within the student experience. For all courses (whether on-campus, blended, or distance learning), the university may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via online technologies and methods.
Since COVID-19, we have delivered our courses in a variety of forms, in line with public authority guidance, decisions, or orders and we will continue to adapt our delivery as appropriate. Whether on campus or online, our key priority is staff and student safety.
This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which will vary depending upon the module.
Assessment methods include:
The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards achieving the intended learning outcomes.
Typical offer for 2024/25 entry.
Student | Full-time | Part-time |
---|---|---|
UK, Ireland*, Channel Islands or Isle of Man | 2025/26 fees TBC 2024/25 fees - £11,200 | £15,200 (with prof. experience) |
Request fee information |
EU | 2025/26 fees TBC 2024/25 fees - £11,200 | £15,200 (with prof. experience) per year with EU Support Bursary** 2025/26 fees TBC 2024/25 fees - £18,600 | £22,600 (with prof. experience) per year without EU Support Bursary** |
Not available |
International | 2025/26 fees TBC 2024/25 fees - £18,600 | £22,600 (with prof. experience) |
Not available |
For advice and guidance on tuition fees3 and student loans visit our Postgraduate Finance page.
We offer a range of international scholarships to students all over the world. For more information, visit our International Scholarships page.
Tuition fees3 cover the cost of your teaching, assessments, facilities and support services. There may be additional costs not covered by this fee such as accommodation and living costs, recommended reading books, stationery, printing and re-assessments should you need them.
The following are additional costs not included in the tuition fees:
The rights of Irish residents to study in the UK are preserved under the Common Travel Area arrangement. If you are an Irish student and meet the residency criteria, you can study in England, pay the same level of tuition fees as English students and utilise the Tuition Fee Loan.
Following the UK's exit from the European Union, we are offering financial support to all eligible EU students who wish to study an undergraduate or a postgraduate degree with us full-time. This bursary will be used to offset the cost of your tuition fees to bring them in line with that of UK students. Students studying a degree with a foundation year with us are not eligible for the bursary.
Our aim is to offer you sector-leading facilities in a dedicated environment4.
Our gaming lab is a technological paradise, equipped with high-end gaming PCs that have all of the industry-standard software necessary for your course4. It also houses virtual reality game development and motion capture technology.
We have print pressers dating back to when we first started as Coventry School of Art and Design back in 1843. This studio consists of two studio spaces for all printing needs from screen printing to etching4.
The Delia Derbyshire complex includes a hyper studio designed for cross-disciplinary projects and immersive studios with cutting-edge virtual reality and mixed-reality technologies for students across all disciplines to collaborate on projects together, a gallery space and an events atrium.
Upon successful completion, you will be able to:
National and international graduate career prospects are many and varied and include education, curation, film and television, games disciplines, print and publishing, animation, film, scientific and technical illustration, storyboarding and character generation in 2D and 3D for traditional and emergent media.
We help you develop a wide range of transferrable skills associated with the use of information gathering, communication technology, professional practice, time management, project management and self-promotion. This could open up career opportunities that include education, television production and web-based media. You may also wish to continue your studies at PhD level or establish a freelance business.
Some of our recent graduates have gone on to work in games-based, scientific, televisual and educational areas.