Art and Design Undergraduate Courses

Study art and design in our creative community, where you’ll work with students from across our arts courses, broadening your artistic horizons.

The School of Arts is a place where talent thrives and ambitions are realised. Our impressive facilities range from our producing and learning theatre, photography lab and purpose-built studios. 

You’ll join a creative community that is supportive in helping students shape their individual identities and styles. Our courses focus on graduate employability, helping you to establish yourself as an artist; this may be through work placements, real world projects and the chance to showcase your work at events, including the end of year Degree Show. 

Courses are led by experienced practitioners, many are artists and designers with key industry contacts. Their fresh and dynamic approach to teaching will encourage you to learn through risk-taking and experimentation to develop your portfolio. You’ll learn skills that can be applied to a range of fields from design to writing, performance to education and curating to publishing. These links mean that you’ll have the opportunity to work with external clients on real briefs, so you’ll graduate with a comprehensive portfolio of work to help launch your career.

Explore our course pages to find out about student success stories and realise your own creative ambition.

Art and Design - your questions answered

In the below video, you'll find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about Art and Design at the University of Derby.

Art and Design, your questions answered video

View Arts and Design - your questions answered! video transcript

Photo of a blonde male wearing glasses and a white shirt looking at the camera

The course allowed me to develop my abilities and try more daring designs, testing my creative and critical thinking skills. Lecturers supported good design and gave critical feedback to improve the final product.

Macauley Metcalfe
Product Design graduate
A blonde female sits smiling for a portrait photo

I was creatively challenged and pushed to work to the best of my ability. The tutors offered me an abundance of guidance and support and the course provided with me the skills and motivation to progress into the creative industry.

Heather Dagless
Illustration graduate

Get industry ready

A female screenprints a picture with blue vertical lines and abstract shapes

Where you will learn

We have invested £200 million in the last ten years to ensure that we have some of the best facilities in the UK. Take a look at where you could be learning on our Art and Design courses.

Take a lookTake a look

Career opportunities

You’ll stand out from the creative crowd with our career-focused degrees.

  • animation
  • advertising
  • web and digital design
  • computer games
  • illustrator
  • practising artist
  • creative director
  • graphic designers
  • film/television
  • publishing

Facilities 

The £21m Markeaton Street site was created specifically for arts, design and technology courses with purpose-built studios and specialist facilities for all our art, design, media and performing arts students. 

Kedleston Road, Derby Campus entrance

Undergraduate Open Days

The best way to find out if studying at Derby is right for you is to experience an Open Day. Get a feel for the city and campus, tour our first-class facilities and see where you could be living.

Book your undergraduate Open DayBook your undergraduate Open Day
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Student stories

Our students and graduates are people just like you. And they are making an impact in our region and around the world by using their knowledge and skills to drive innovation and change. You can be part of that story. Let our students and graduates tell you theirs.

Hear from our students and graduatesHear from our students and graduates
Image contains the name of the arts degree show exhibition 'unlocked' in blue and yellow colours against a black background.

Unlocked

The School of Arts are hosting on-site exhibitions at a range of campuses across Derby for this year's Degree Show.

Find out more about UnlockedFind out more about Unlocked