Printmaking BA(Hons)

How this course is delivered

We've made some changes to the way our courses are taught to keep everyone safe, connected and involved in university life.

At the moment, students have a blend of on-campus and digitally enabled remote learning that provides lots of opportunities to interact and engage with lecturers and other students.

Year 1

You will explore a variety of ways of working including investigating drawing in an expanded way, colour theory and ideas development. You’ll have theoretical lectures and seminars as well as technical inductions into all the main processes of printmaking (etching, lithography, screen, relief, Photoshop and Illustrator). You will be supported to develop research into interests and concerns that motivate you individually. You will also collaboratively plan a group exhibition and take part in a print edition project.

Modules

• Studio Practice 1: Orientation

  This module orientates you to the main elements of studio practice. Research informed teaching introduces you to various methods of contextual and critical exploration that will underpin the development of your practice, informing the development of professional skills. Seminars and tutorials will give you the opportunity to discuss your interests with each other, helping to generate and develop creative ideas.

• Studio Practice 2: Enquiry, Edition, Exhibition

  This module provides you with the opportunity to match your imaginative and intellectual concerns against the constraints and potentials of editioned printmaking, a skill set that contributes to professional employability. This experience will lead to the planning and presentation of a year group exhibition. By demonstrating an increasingly fluent, critically informed understanding of your visual research, you will develop a convincingly progressive printmaking practice.

• Printmaking Technical Inductions

  This module provides technical demonstration and direct workshop engagement with the main processes of etching, lithography, screenprint, relief and digital printmaking processes. You will also compare and contrast the potential of the processes to which you are introduced.

• Introduction to Theories and Practices of Fine Art

  This module introduces a range of approaches used to think about the relationship between fine art practice and the social and cultural contexts in which art has emerged at various periods. Attention is paid to how artworks and art practices embody changing ideas, meanings, values and effects.

  Students from all fine art areas take part, enabling interdisciplinary dialogue. The module explores historical contextualisation appropriate for studio practice, supporting the development of library-based research and academic skills.

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through Student View.

Watch our film about printmaking at Brighton

2018 graduate Rachel Sankey talks about her experiences of studying printmaking at Brighton.

Year 2

The second year is when you really begin to develop your work and your autonomy of practice, testing your ideas and research methodologies, and clarifying what aspects of printmaking you want to refine. The fine art exhibition, held in and around the university gallery, gives you the opportunity to exhibit your work with your peers from other disciplines. A public engagement module provides connectivity between studio and workshop activity, usually a school or an artists led project,  and a professional working environment.

Modules

• Artist Journal: Materiality of Practice, New Perspectives and Online Audiences
• Studio Practice 3: Investigation, Experimentation, Public Exhibition and Engagement
• Theories and Practices of Fine Art: Contexts and Specialism in a Post-digital World

Options*

• Option module

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Final year

In your third year the exploration of creative possibilities intensifies as you consolidate your interests in order to plan a resolved body of work for the graduate show. This is an exciting time when the insights and experience gained throughout the course come together to present undergraduate practice at its most inventive, thought-provoking and professional. There is also a focus on the development of your practice after undergraduate study and course has a proven track record of progression to respected masters level courses.

Modules

• Studio Practice 4: Speculation and Integration
• Studio Practice 5: Coherence and Syntheses – Degree Exhibition
• Theories and Practice of Fine Art: Articulation of Your Critical Position

Facilities

The course benefits from top-class facilities including:

• Dedicated studio space for each student 
• Facilities for intaglio, relief, lithography and screen printing 
• Expert technical staff to assist you in workshops and inductions into equipment and technologies 
• Essential hand tools available for loan 
• Media Centre, including specialist equipment such as materials for sound, film and photography available for short term loan, computer rooms with contemporary software for digital image processing and manipulation, graphic layout and typography, animation, film and sound production, and editing. 
• Photographic Services Unit including well-equipped dark room, studio and camera loan facilities  
• Digi-hub featuring laser cutting, plasma cutting, CNC 3-axis milling, CNC routing, 3D body scanning, portable 3D scanning and rapid prototyping. 
• Department print bureau 
• One of the country's best-stocked specialist art and design libraries 
• Internationally important Design Archives  
• On site supplies shop.

Meet the team

Phil Tyler, course leader

Phil Tyler is a practising artist who is interested in the relationship between the materiality of painting and it's potential to act as a cypher for grief, loss and the notion of the sublime. His practice involves painting, drawing, printmaking photography, collage, digital image and writing.

He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally since the mid 1980s including in the ING Discerning Eye, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, The Lynn Painter-Stainers prize, The Garrick Milne Prize, The Royal Over seas league, East, The National Open and the Whitworth young contemporaries competitions and most recently his work was part of an exhbibtion of 82 British Artists in Poland and well as The Ruth Borschard Prize. His work is in both public and private collections in this country as well as in America, Australia Finland, Hong Kong and Sweden, including Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

Other staff include tutors Jane Fox and Johanna Love and technicians Chris Hunt, Ray Dennis, Scarlett Tierney and Wayne Case.

Portrait by Phil Tyler

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Portfolio advice 

Online portfolio

When preparing your online portfolio please consider that we are looking for applicants with a demonstrable interest in one or more of the following:

• graphic fine art languages
• fine art prints and processes
• drawing
• collage
• the photographic and text-oriented (including artists’ books)
• a fascination with images from archives, with printed ephemera, or with images culled from the Internet
• image making in its broadest sense including painting, photography and digital.

Find out more about how to create and submit your portfolio.

Course fees

What's included

You may have to pay additional costs during your studies. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. A summary of the costs that you may be expected to pay, and what is included, whilst studying a course in the School of Art are listed here.

• For most courses you will need to budget for the cost of specialist materials, equipment and printing and are likely to spend between £50–£300 per year.
• Costs in your final year of study are very likely to be higher than in earlier years as you bring together your final body of work and portfolio, and you may need to budget between £200 and £1,000.
• For some courses you may also need to budget up to £100 for specialist personal protective clothing which, with care, will last for the whole of your course and beyond.
• For most courses you will have the opportunity to attend field trips and off-site visits, for example to galleries, exhibitions and studios both in the UK and overseas. These are optional and are not required to pass your course. The amount spent would be based on location and number of trips taken, and typically range between £100 and £700 across the duration of your course.
• You will have access to computers and necessary software at City campus and at other locations across the university. However, many students choose to buy their own hardware – usually a laptop, software and accessories. The amount spent will depend on your individual choices but this expenditure is not essential to pass any of our courses.
• Course books and a wide range of magazines and journals are available in the university libraries. You do not need to have your own copies, but if you wish to, you should budget up to £200 over your course to buy them.
• For courses in which there is an optional placement year, you will need to budget for living costs (rent, food, travel etc) in that city/country, as if you were on site at the university.

You can chat with our enquiries team through the Stay in touch panel at the end of this page if you require further information. Or check our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships, as well as more information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2021–22.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

Local area

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps