Our BA (Hons) Illustration and Animation course explores the connections between animation and illustration, helping you to create sequential narratives using a variety of methods – from traditional handmade image-making, to the latest specialist 2D digital animation, 3D CGI used in industry and cutting-edge interactive techniques.

As well as gaining strong software skills and a good understanding of animation, timings and motion, you will become an innovative and creative thinker. You will develop creative abilities, technical skills and a personal language within animation, with the focus being on illustration and design.

Within our supportive and vibrant studio culture, you will work on a range of projects from narrative animation, animated idents, motion graphics, character design, storyboarding, CGI and concept art to develop a body of work for your professional portfolio and showreel, preparing you for industry.

Perhaps most importantly, you’ll get time, guidance and support from a team of industry professionals, animators and illustrators and visiting industry experts who are dedicated to your creative development. In your final year you will also receive guidance from an assigned industry advisor dedicated to the year.

At Cambridge School of Art, you’ll experiment and discover, try stuff out, venture into the unknown and find solutions, develop and create. Our Design & Crafts courses ranked eighth in the UK for 'Satisfied with Course' and third for 'Satisfied with Teaching' in The Guardian University Guide 2020, reflecting how our students’ value their experience with us.

While developing a unique visual style, you’ll also focus on the core foundations: studying the world around you, refining your drawing skills, learning the fundamentals of animation skills using industry standard 2D and 3D animation software, such as TV paint and Maya and learning to create engaging stories through moving images.

You’ll go on group reportage drawing trips, with opportunities to visit museums, galleries and animation festivals in the UK and overseas. You’ll find lots of visual inspiration in Cambridge – from the Botanic Gardens to the art collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, to the city’s architectural beauty and vibrant cultural and student life.

On campus, you’ll have access to our dedicated animation production studios, which feature high-end 3D CGI, Cintiqs and Rostrum camera, lighting and sound recording equipment. These are the tools you need for the wide range of animation methods we teach from traditional hand-drawn and stop-motion animation, experimental and interactive imaging to the up-to-date industry-standards of 2D and 3D digital animation. As well as this, all our Illustration and Animation students have access to printmaking facilities, photo and film studios, and life drawing studios.

As a student at ARU you’ll receive ongoing support to find placements and work experience and you can also take an optional placement year. You'll develop a professional showreel and website, so you are ready to go out into industry, get the opportunity to present your work at festivals and fairs, work for live briefs as well as get promoted through our our Present graduate exhibition site.

Graduate Sabine Buhain received industry recognition at New Designers 21 - open to all final year visual communication students in the UK - winning the Aardman Academy Screening Award for ‘Like It Was Yesterday’. Sabine’s animation grabbed the judges’ attention with her ‘‘wonderful design and colour journey [creating] a world we immediately loved’.

As well as raising your industry profile through exhibitions and awards, you can attend guest lectures from some of the top animation studios in London, such as  Passion Pictures, The Mill, FrameStore and Studio Aka and take advantage of our relationships with animators, illustrators and production studios such as Curveball Media, Sookio and Allia Future Business Centre, to build a strong body of work ready for a professional career in the animation and illustration industry.

This degree will prepare you for work in the creative industries as an 2D/3D animator, motion graphics designer, or illustrator, and many of our graduates now work with leading animation studios and UK broadcasters such as The Mill, 12 Foot 6, Slurpy Studios, The Like Minded, Filofax, BBC and Channel 4, as well as developing freelance careers in animation and illustration.

With an understanding of traditional animation and illustration, combined with expertise in cutting-edge digital design technology, our graduates have found success with leading animation studios and broadcasters, including Channel 4 and the BBC.

As an Illustration and Animation student at ARU, you can be sure you’ll graduate with the knowledge, skills and abilities that industry needs. We work with artists, creative agencies and production studios – and they offer hands-on, practical opportunities to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements.

On our Sequential Practice module, you’ll focus on preparing for life beyond university, creating a showreel, a website and promotional material, as well as hearing guest speakers from some of the top animation studios in London, such as Passion Pictures, The Mill, FrameStore and Studio Aka.

Cambridge is the perfect place to gain experience – a creative hotspot that’s home to thousands of established businesses and start-ups. And, at the end of your final year, you’ll take part in our degree show in London – the perfect launchpad for your career.