Illustration and Animation

About this programme

Programme makers and advertisers are hungry for imaginative, entertaining work, especially moving-image and animation. This course responds to this demand and embraces the natural link between illustration and animation. You will engage with traditional and experimental illustration and animation processes that offer alternatives to the pervasive digital aesthetic. This will include illustration that moves, animation that isn’t led by drawing and short, sharp, witty film-making that doesn’t require lengthy and expensive production. You will share a studio space with the specialist illustration students, but also work closely as an animation group to discuss ideas and support each other. You will become adept in the creative cycle of research, planning, developing, shaping, making and finishing, in a wide range of outcomes. The final year allows you to experiment with more ambitious projects in either illustration, animation, or both, defining your own specialism and preparing a distinctive portfolio and showreel. Your course is split down into modules, and into projects within those modules. You will be able to shape those projects around your interests and build a portfolio that feels individual to you. Tap the sections below to get an overview of the course modules, broken down into years. The module descriptions here are designed to give a sense of the structure of the course, and the indicative content that you will study at HCA - not a list of everything you will cover. The module provides an introduction to the work of key practitioners in Illustration and Anima