Online learning at the Open College of the Arts provides a significant degree of flexibility in how and when you study the arts. Instead of being tied to a physical campus or rigid timetables, your learning happens where you are – whether that’s your home, studio, or any comfortable space – and you can access your course materials whenever best suits your personal schedule, allowing you to create a study plan that integrates with your existing commitments. Each 40-credit unit has a 12-month timeframe for completion (including an initial induction period) to ensure a focused and progressive learning experience. You’ll also join a diverse and inspiring global community of students, and gain access to a dedicated department space where you can engage with webinars and workshops in addition to your core learning materials.

Our online student platform, OCA Learn, becomes your central hub after registration, providing all your course materials and a space to connect with others. Through OCA Learn, you’ll conveniently submit your completed assignments online. Throughout your studies, you’ll receive expert guidance from a dedicated tutor, a practicing artist, who will offer constructive feedback on your submitted work. This feedback is designed to help you grow, highlighting what you’re doing well and  areas for improvement, often delivered through a mix of detailed written notes directly on your digital submissions within OCA Learn, and the chance to connect with tutors via video.

Stage 1 comprises three 40-credit units that must be studied in order.

Unit 1.1 Introducing Visual Communications will introduce you to methods and strategies on how to generate and visualise ideas. You will develop an understanding of the basic visual language of illustration, discover mark-making and drawing, composition, framing, visual hierarchies and colour theory. The unit also introduces design thinking through creative problem-solving activities, considering the relationship between form and function; and by beginning to develop a design process through techniques in researching, developing, visualising and presenting ideas. The unit also offers distinct options into specialist study through a choice of content in areas of visual practice such as drawing, printmaking and photography. An appreciation of the historical and contemporary contexts of visual communications will be developed by reviewing the work of other graphic designers, illustrators and creative practitioners. 

To move on to Unit 1.2, you’ll first need to successfully pass the assessment for Unit 1.1. Please be aware that this initial progression step might involve a slightly longer gap between unit enrolments compared to the transition between subsequent units. 

Unit 1.2: Exploring Visual Communications will continue to support the exploration of your creativity by examining how to generate and visualise ideas, use reference material to inform your approach and continue to develop content and meaning within your work. The unit introduces design thinking through creative problem-solving activities and exploring the relationship between form and function. Exercises and assignments explore a wide range of specialist design and illustration contexts including children’s illustration, vernacular typography, observational drawing, poster design, abstraction, instructional graphics and book cover layouts. The unit offers distinct options into specialist study where you can begin to explore the span of visual communications in a wider range of creative contexts. 

Unit 1.3: Developing Visual Communications will support the development of your creative ideas by examining how to begin to analyse a brief, generate and visualise ideas, use reference material to inform your approach and continue to develop content and meaning within your work. Exercises and assignments will develop your understanding of professional contexts for your work such as developing client visuals, character development, editorial design and illustration, using narrative in educational and biographical contexts, informational graphics and instructional illustration. You will be encouraged to critically reflect on your own work, use your learning log as a space to reflect on the results, make connections to wider contexts and begin to identify your own personal voice within your work. 

Stage 2 comprises three 40-credit units that must be studied in order.

Unit 2.1: Understanding Visual Communications looks at the relationship between a client, a brief, and you as a creative practitioner is central to your understanding as a visual communicator. This unit will begin to explore this relationship and support you in applying creative problem-solving techniques, developing briefs and approaches, interpreting the desires of clients and audiences, and finding effective ways of communicating your ideas and developing the critical skills to evaluate the results. Visual communications can be split into discrete areas of practice, each with a slightly different focus, depending on the types of communications being developed or the media through which these messages are sent. You will begin to explore these various areas of practice and their expanded visual, illustrative and design approaches.

2.2: Briefs and Approaches considers different types of brief, from open and closed briefs, industry-based and competition briefs, and how to write a brief for your own self-directed project. These briefs will consider how to define a specific project, write a brief overview, establish goals and objectives and consider design requirements, budgets and deadlines. This information will condition and determine your creative approach, and how you best work with and target different clients and audiences. You will creatively explore the integration of typography and visual elements within layouts, examine the role of design within packaging, product design, branding and campaigning, and look at info-graphics through information and signage design. You will also investigate how to use drawing to create narrative and sequential illustrations through storyboards and consider a range of contemporary contexts for image-making including satirical illustration, self-publishing, street art and non-paper applications.

2.3: Clients and Audiences applies your understanding of clients and audiences by developing your own brief, this unit will focus on how best to create, develop, complete and disseminate your work. You will consider local, national and global contexts for your work, and how this hierarchy conditions and determines your creative and practical decisions on how to create artwork. Consider the practical applications, like discussing projects and negotiating with clients; preparing a project outline; producing, presenting and promoting your work and preparing a portfolio; and working with sub-contractors, printers and distributors. 

Stage 3 comprises three 40-credit units that must be studied in order.

3.1: Practice and Research provides a framework that enables you to foster an increasingly autonomous and professional approach to your studies. As the first unit at Stage 3, it will introduce you to this level of study by supporting you to initiate and articulate your emerging creative practice, introduce relevant research methods, and to develop fluency in your critical thinking. Working across practice and research allows one to inform the other. It provides room to build on your learning, test new ideas, and to identify areas of interest you may want to develop. You will be encouraged to deepen your awareness of your discipline and its subject boundaries, and to develop highly relevant practical, technical, and communication skills to articulate your ideas and outcomes. You should demonstrate your creative voice through outcomes that will include a portfolio of self-directed work, including a reflective learning log, and a critical thinking assignment which can be written or take an alternative format, and can form the basis of an extended essay.

3.2: External Projects provides a framework to identify appropriate outward facing projects and opportunities to test, develop, and present your work and ideas. Through this process you will be asked to consider the relationship between your work and other people, how contemporary practices and debates might shape your creative approach and ideas, and how you can effectively propose, develop, and communicate intentions, ideas, and outcomes. The aim of the unit is to lay the foundations for the long-term sustainability of your creative practice, whether this is through professional practice, enterprise activities, further study, or other forms of meaningful engagement. The scope and ambition of this undertaking will be shaped by your interests, motivations, and location. Consequently, the shape and format of projects can vary, including student, tutor, or client-led projects, one sustained project or any number of shorter ones, but should all have an external facing aspect. To support this approach, you will need to apply increasingly professional personal and graduate skills in your dealings with other people. The written or presentation project provides an opportunity to either extend the critical thinking assignment into an extended essay, or to produce case studies, project reports, or business cases to support your chosen external activities.

 3.3: Major Project is the final unit at Stage 3 provides the opportunity to demonstrate all that you have learned over the previous units and levels by undertaking a self-directed project and reflecting on your experiences through a reflective presentation. You will focus on a specialist area of inquiry and to undertake a substantial and sustained body of work. You will devise a project that allows you to explore a field of interest and to further develop your emerging practice, showcased in an appropriate self-managed way, through physical or online exhibitions, contributions to publications, performances, trade shows or other commercial contexts, portfolio presentations, or other platforms, and shared through OCA’s online gallery. To support this, you will produce self-promotional, marketing, and other outward facing material, and continue to apply increasingly professional personal and graduate skills in your dealings with other people. 

When you complete a unit, you are invited to submit a portfolio of work and critical essays to the next available assessment event. There are three undergraduate assessment events held each year, and when you complete your unit decides which assessment event you submit to. In some instances, you will require your assessment results before progressing onto your next unit.

You have a total of 12 months to complete each 40-credit unit, starting with a two-week induction.

You will arrange your assignment submission dates with your tutor directly so you can study at your own pace within the unit timeframe (although it’s important to note that full-time study is not available). This means that the course completion time varies depending on the study hours dedicated, and when you submit to assessment.

After successfully finishing a unit, you have a six-month window to enrol for your subsequent unit of study. This six-month period begins from the date you receive your assessment results.

Programme Specifications

Programme Specification

The BA (Hons) Visual Communications course was updated in 2021. Students who enrolled before the update will continue with the previous version (the “Teach Out” programme) until they progress to a new stage of their studies. At that point, they will switch to the updated course.

Teaching Out Programme Specification

New students cannot enrol to the Teach Out programme.

Accessibility Guides

Accessibility guides give an indication of the type and format of content, teaching, and learning activities on the course, and how these are ordinarily delivered.

Review Accessibility Guides Here

Curriculum changes

We regularly review our curriculum; therefore, the qualification described on this page – including its availability, its structure, and available units – may change over time. If we make changes to this qualification, we’ll update this page as soon as possible. Once you’ve registered or are studying this qualification, where practicable, we’ll inform you in good time of any upcoming changes. If you’d like to know more about the circumstances in which OCA might make changes to the curriculum, see our Academic Regulations or contact us. This description was last updated on 14 December 2022.

The Academic Regulations for Subsidiary Institutions of The Open University are applicable to all taught courses offered by the Open College of the Arts (OCA).

Academic Regulatory Framework

The Academic Regulatory Framework (ARF) regulations are applicable to all taught courses offered by the Open College of the Arts (OCA). As of January 2024, this will lead to an undergraduate award of The Open University (OU).

You can review the ARF through the link below:

Academic Framework

You will need a reasonable standard of written, reading, listening and spoken English so you can make best use of study materials, communicate effectively with your tutor or fellow students and seek help from other OCA Support Teams.

If your nationality does not feature on the list of ‘majority English speaking countries’ then you will need to provide evidence of your English language proficiency.

Find out more about preparing for study at higher education and meeting the English language requirements here. 

OCA courses are designed to be studied at a distance, therefore it is essential that students have the right IT literacy to successfully engage with their course, and are expected to be confident using a basic range of IT functions. 

Review the IT expectations for studying with OCA here.

This course assumes that you have access to, and familiarity with, basic techniques such as image manipulation, and laying out images and text, and that you will practise and develop your skills with your specific software during the course. You may need to develop your skills in using this technology, but since technology moves so fast and each student may use different software, this course doesn’t go into the detail of each software package.

You’ll need 10 study hours per week on average to complete a unit within the given timeframe. The time you dedicate to your studies can impact how quickly you progress. If you have a particular goal in mind for completion, there are different recommended weekly study hours. 

Below is guidance on the weekly study hours required on the average and maximum pace of study. 

• 9 year completion rate (10 study hours per week)
• 6 year completion rate (16 – 18 study hours per week)

Full-time study is not an option in this programme, regardless of your available study hours.

All courses that OCA offer require students have regular access to a desktop computer or laptop, and internet access. 

The courses are designed to be accessible, without the need to  purchase expensive equipment. This list is what you’ll need to get started, and you’ll gradually expand your toolkit as you develop your creative practice.

Essential Tools for Visual Communication Students

• Drawing and Writing Tools: Pencils, pens, fineliners, coloured markers and highlighters.
• Paper and Sketchbooks: A variety of sizes, including A4, A3, and A2 sketchbooks or loose sheets. 
• A large roll of cheap newsprint or paper for brainstorming and large-scale work.
• Photography Equipment: Your phone camera is a great starting point. 
• A tripod or flexible ‘gorilla grip’ mount can help stabilise your shots.

Digital Tools:

• A computer or laptop (preferably with a graphics card for smoother performance).
• Industry-standard software like Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) or similar alternatives.
• A scanner for digitising traditional work.
• A printer for testing layouts and prints.

Basic Art Supplies: 

• Paints, brushes, rulers, erasers and masking tape.
• Storage and Organisation: Folders, portfolios or digital storage solutions to keep your work safe and organised.
• Lighting: A small desk lamp or ring light for better visibility when working or photographing your work.

Optional but Helpful Extras:

• A graphics tablet or iPad with a stylus for digital drawing and design.
• A cutting mat, craft knife and glue for hands-on projects.
• A portable hard drive for backing up your work.

Students are responsible for sourcing the materials required for their coursework, although essential reading materials can be reviewed through the online OU Library.