Design skills are essential for New Zealand’s economic and cultural future. Our Art and Design programmes will give you the skills you need to build a career in this exciting and diverse field. Studying here will see you in good company. Our students regularly win national awards and the acknowledgement of colleagues in the industry. Our Art and Design facilities are located at our City Campus in Christchurch and our Timaru Campus.
Bachelor: Ara has been offering a Bachelor of Design degree for twenty years, and quality design education for a lot longer. We have five specialisations, including Visual Communication, Applied Visual Arts and Motion Design. In the Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication Design) you will “Learn how to generate ideas, solve problems and design innovative solutions in advertising, marketing and communication design.” Our class sizes are small (15-20) and our tutors are both qualified and highly experienced. All our students have the chance to engage in projects with external clients alongside learning core design skills like creative idea generation and iterative prototyping. Our degree is taught over only three years, but each is 32 weeks long, so there’s as much content as a four-year university degree.
Postgraduate: We now offer access to postgraduate study through our own Postgraduate Diploma and Masters in Creative Practice. These offer full and part-time study to visual artists, designers, musicians, photographers, and more. https://youtu.be/GCIQwLVcLrA
Ara Graduates; Recent Graduate Sarah Cant said“Ara was really the only place I wanted to study design in Christchurch.” Our graduates are all over the industry – have you enjoyed a Lemmy Lemonade lately? One of our guys designed the chirpy little citrus on the bottle. One day that could be you! See some of our recent graduates profiled in DA’s Hot New Things Series.