All students begin this online illustration course with the introductory unit, Illustration as Interrelated Practices. The remaining elective units will take place in their dedicated intake months. If you're completing a Master's, you'll also do the final two Major Projects. We're committed to making sure that your learning is set within an ethical framework by embedding UAL’s Principles for Climate, Social and Racial Justice into this online course.
Illustration as Interrelated Practices (30 credits)
How can illustration inform empathic, playful and impactful ways of engaging with the world?
In this first unit, you’ll discover illustration as an expanded, transdisciplinary practice. You’ll move beyond traditional methods, exploring new ways of thinking and making across fields like social sciences, psychology and human geography.
Experiment with storytelling, performance, moving image, 3D making and collaborative practices to deepen your creative approach, and build a portfolio of experimental and applied projects that show how illustration connects to wider cultural ideas.
Speculation, Storytelling and Narrative (30 credits)
How do stories, images, and imagination shape the futures we build?
Explore the powerful link between speculative fiction and illustration. You’ll examine how imagining near futures can help us respond to today’s complex realities, developing a strong critical position through concepts drawn from multiple disciplines.
You’ll experiment with fiction, futurism and visual storytelling to propose alternative futures, producing an illustrative body of work that responds to a real-world challenge. Whether through books, zines, films, animations or other formats, you’ll learn to craft narratives that hold cultural impact and speak to an identified audience.
Communication, Power and Voice (30 credits)
How can image-making practices disrupt embedded power structures?
Use illustration to explore representation, ethics and the politics of visual communication. You’ll consider how images shape meaning, how audiences engage with your work and how you can responsibly research and communicate complex ideas.
Through experimental image-making and advanced visual analysis, you’ll develop your own creative voice. You’ll also work with the visual essay format, producing a critical illustrative output that examines ideas of communication, power and voice.
Emergent Resilient Practices (30 credits)
What happens when new technologies enable new illustration practices?
As technologies evolve, illustrators need to be adaptable, critically literate and resilient. In this unit, you’ll explore how tools such as neural networks, machine learning, AR/VR and large language models are shaping contemporary illustration.
Through playful experimentation, you’ll develop future-facing creative methods and understand the opportunities and challenges these technologies bring. By the end, you’ll have a confident, critically informed position on how emerging tools can expand and strengthen your practice.
Major Project 1 (30 credits)
As an illustrator in the contemporary context what do you want to say, how do you want to say it and who do you want to say it to?
This unit forms the first half of your final Major Project. You’ll reflect on your experiences across the course, identify a research question and design a methodology for your self-directed project.
You’ll create a well-researched proposal that shows your critical understanding of context, theory and application. Through exploratory making and prototyping, you’ll shape a clear, ambitious plan for the final stage of your MA and define your long-term creative direction.
Major Project 2 (30 credits)
What is your practice?
Building on Major Project 1, this unit focuses on bringing your project to life. You’ll refine your proposal, develop your creative methodology and produce a substantial body of work that reflects your expanded practice and understanding of audiences, context and process.
Through sustained, research-driven development, you’ll create a resolved final project that embodies your personal creative vision — demonstrating resilience, agility and a confident, future-focused practice.