BA (Hons) Digital Media Design

Advice from graduate Gavin Jones:

"If you have the opportunity to do a placement as part of your course, take it. Don’t just sit back and expect a placement to come to you: spend time connecting and contacting organisations you are interested in. Real industry experience is a highly valuable thing moving forward after university, and it can have a positive long term effect on your career."

Read more from Gavin in his case study.

• Stay one step ahead with a course designed in close collaboration with industry leaders to ensure technologies, skills and techniques are bang up to date.
• Access all areas – keep working into the evening in our dedicated lab space open until 10pm, and take advantage of our other amazing facilities, including a 35 seat, 360° immersive vision theatre.
• Customise your course with our unique exit awards, and choose from games design, information design and interaction design.
• Your assessments are 100 per cent coursework – no exams!
• 100 per cent of students are good at explaining things; 100 per cent of students agreed staff made the subject interesting; 92 per cent of students were satisfied overall and 92 per cent of students agreed they got sufficient advice and support. 90 per cent of students were in a professional/managerial job six months after the course (source: 2016 NSS and 2016 DLHE survey results available on Unistats**).
• Be inspired by lecturers who are experts in their field, with backgrounds in both industry and research. The exciting work going on in our research groups, i-DAT and Transtech, feeds back into the teaching on this course.
• Get ready for work - take an optional additional year and secure a paid placement with a company. You’ll gain invaluable experience that could lead to a job in a company such as MTV or Disney when you graduate. 
• Broaden your horizons with great enrichment activities including overseas field trips in Berlin, Helsinki and New York to attend conferences and visit galleries. 
• Network, network, network – we have close links with industry leaders including Sony, IBM, Virgin Media and Kaspersky.
• Get exclusive insights with talks from guest speakers from the creative arts and technology industries, such as Hannah Wood, Jaromil and Luke Jerram.
  

• Year 1

• In your first year, you’ll get a grounding in the digital media, software, technologies and production techniques needed throughout the course. You’ll also gain a critical understanding of the theory behind digital media and the social, cultural and industrial contexts in which they operate. You’ll be introduced to contemporary graphic and motion graphic tools, web design and web programming technologies, along with the coding skills and creative design strategies that underpin them.
  

  Core modules

  • DAT401 Strategies for Digital Art and Technology

    This module introduces students to practical and creative processes. Activities foster experimentation and conceptual understanding of design processes, establishing strategies and critical conceptual skills, combined with technical production skills. Students are expected to develop an online presence through this module.

  • DAT402 Digital Culture

    This module introduces a theoretical and practical context for contemporary digital media practice. It explores the history of digital media, highlighting connections between pre-digital technologies and contemporary media forms. Practical workshops and a field trip provide a critical context for students work.

  • DAT403 Digital Media Design

    This module explores the evolution of digital media forms, from a technical and design perspective. Conventional media forms (print, film, photography, video and television), and contemporary 'Digital Media' forms are explored. Design issues and technical production and distribution processes are investigated.

  • DAT404 Web Technologies

    Emphasis is placed on the development of practical and creative web design skills for the production and programming of online interactive multimedia, experimenting with issues such as navigation, hyper media, narrative, representation, game and interactivity.

  • DAT405 Creative Coding

    This module provides an introduction to programming for digital artists and designers. The syllabus, topics, examples and style of teaching are designed to support interaction, graphics, video, animation, sound, embedded systems and integration with live data sources.

  • DAT406PP Digital Making

    This module introduces students to a key set of digital technologies that are core to the production of current digital artwork. This will include exposure to a wide range of software, hardware and networking components commonly used by digital artists and designers. This is a Plymouth Plus module.

  • FAPY100 Stage 1 Placement Preparation

    If you’re undertaking a company placement in your third year, this module helps you find a suitable placement, and prepares you for the placement itself.

• Year 2

• In your second year, you’ll build on your creative profile and improve your technical and critical skills. If you plan to choose the placement year, you’ll get a chance to build your CV and portfolio. You’ll be introduced to industrial strength project management and planning, helping you develop your individual creative practice. Professional collaborations with industry will give you insights into the benefits of both individual and group ways of working.
  

  Core modules

  • DAT501 Strategies for Digital Art & Technology

    This module provides students with further practical and creative methodologies to support their digital practice, developing a critical understanding of the relationship of their work to historical and contemporary contexts. Students develop creative strategies to produce self-directed experimental projects that inform their Final Stage Award Theme choice.

  • DAT502 Creative Industries

    This module explores the dynamic changes that are sweeping through traditional media and communications industries, brought about by the impact of new technologies. It explores, through group production projects, the practical issues underpinning the management of distributed organisations. The module includes an international field trip

  • DAT503 Reflexive Design

    This module provides students with an introduction to contemporary design processes from conception through development, to realisation. Supported by a critical examination of cultural artefacts, the module demands students synthesise a design practice with an understanding of historical, human-centred, environmental and educational principles.

  • DAT504 Advanced Web Technologies

    This module provides students with opportunities to further develop their interactive web-based media design and production skills. Emphasis is placed on a critical understanding of the context and an experimental approach to creative production. A focus is placed on developing creative skills and strategies to deliver professional quality projects.

  • DAT505 Advanced Creative Coding

    This module addresses advanced topics in programming for digital artists. This includes coverage of different development paradigms, advanced algorithms and essential APIs for effective creative software development. The module engages students on how code is used in a 'generative' or creative fashion - such as a-life and artificial intelligence.

  • DAT506 Emerging Technology

    This module introduces students to a key set of digital technologies that are core to the production of current digital artwork. This will include exposure to a wide range of software, hardware and networking components commonly used by digital artists and designers.

  • FAPY200 Stage 2 Placement Preparation

    Building on the Level 1 module (FAPY100), this module continues to support you with the search for your placement and preparation for the placement itself.

• Year 3

• You have the opportunity to take an optional paid 48 week work placement that offers invaluable practical work experience. We recommend it because it not only enhances your final year of study, you’re also more likely to receive project sponsorship and immediate employment with your placement company after you graduate. You'll typically earn around £15,000-£20,000 pa (or more) during your placement year.
  

  Core modules

  • FAPY604 Digital Art and Technology/Internet Design Placement

    An extend period of professional training (at least the duration of both teaching semesters - 36 weeks) spent as the third year of a sandwich programme undertaking an approved placement with a suitable company (either a paid placement or unpaid internship). This provides an opportunity for the student to gain relevant industrial experience to consolidate the first two stages of study and to prepare for the final stage and employment after graduation.

• Final year

• In your final year, you’ll focus on your own particular areas of interest, with a creative bias, by following one of our exit pathways in game design, information design, or interaction design. This will allow you to develop the skills relevant to industry and enhance your employability. You'll also undertake a final year dissertation on a topic of your choice, with the guidance of your personal supervisor.
  

  Core modules

  • DAT612 BA Final Year Project

    The project is student led, negotiated through close liaison with an allocated supervisor and developed from a student's particular interests. The project comprises of a significant digital media production that should be innovative and experimental in its approach and placed within a critical context. The chosen Project should address one of the four Award themes.

  • DAT613 Dissertation

    This module provides the opportunity to research a topic in depth, using both primary and secondary sources. Students are encouraged to develop research methodologies for collating and synthesising data and concepts in order to present their findings and arguments clearly and persuasively. The outcome will be a dissertation.

  Optional modules

  • DAT601 Realtime

    This module develops audio and visual production skills with a specific application to the manifestation of information drawn from a variety of sources, disciplines and media. Students will develop techniques for rendering visual and acoustic representations across a range of resolutions through animation, illustration, dynamic data, and immersive dome environments.

  • DAT602 Everyware

    Through practical project work the module explores the evolution of the Internet of Things, the emergence of Pervasive Media and the application of Physical Computing. Projects are framed within a critical exploration of space as a cultural, social and technological phenomenon and models of architecture, communities and personal identity.

  • DAT603 Gameplay

    This module explores games design, entertainment systems and the broader field of 'play' within a technological context. Student centred practical projects will be informed through a grounding in relevant cultural, social, psychological and economic theory.

  • DAT604 Venture Culture

    This module introduces students to the concepts of entrepreneurship through the practical exploration of individual, collaborative and organisational creative enterprise. Operating as a pragmatic vehicle for generating new ventures within the creative industries, the formation of prototype companies enables students to rehearse the commercialisation of their practice.

  • DAT605 Premediation

    This module offers students technical and conceptual skills to experiment and innovate with live, immersive 2D and 3D audio-visual media. In workshops, seminars and live projects, students will create applications and projects informed by experimental approaches to live a/v computing in a variety of artistic, cultural and industrial contexts, exploring the use of media technologies to model and shape human perception and expectation, through mediation and premediation.

A Levels
112 points, from a minimum of 2 A Levels, General Studies accepted.

International baccalaureate
28 points

BTEC
18 Unit BTEC National Diploma/QCF Extended Diploma: DMM.

BTEC National Diploma modules
If you hold a BTEC qualification it is vital that you provide our Admissions team with details of the exact modules you have studied as part of the BTEC. Without this information we may be unable to process your application quickly and you could experience significant delays in the progress of your application to study with us. Please explicitly state the full list of modules within your qualification at the time of application.

Access Course
Pass a named Access to Higher Education Diploma with at least 33 credits at merit and/or distinction.

GCSE
Five passes including Mathematics and English Language grade C.