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What makes Creative Writing and Illustration at Worcester special?

Studying a joint honours degree in Creative Writing and Illustration combines two highly complementary disciplines that span creativity across both written and visual forms. You’ll develop your artistic and writing abilities, allowing you to produce work that showcases your development in both areas of study.

The course provides theoretical and practical training in the form of lectures, seminars, and workshops to support your growth as a writer and artist, led by staff with years of professional experience. Students graduate with a portfolio of work that will demonstrate skills desired by a wide range of job roles.

Overview

Overview

Key features

  • An exciting programme of guest speakers for both areas, including Olivier Kugler, Isabel Greenberg, Jonny Hannah, Katerina Manolessou, Ben Newman, Jane Ray, Nobrow, and Flying Eye Books
  • Introduction to exhibition practice through illustration fairs, card sales and exhibitions in the final year graduation show
  • Opportunity to travel to destinations in mainland Europe and to showcase your work in London
  • Excellent work placement opportunities, including through Writing West Midlands and Ledbury Poetry Festival
  • Tailor your course to your individual needs with a joint honours degree
Entry requirements

Entry requirements

104
UCAS tariff points

Entry requirements

104 UCAS tariff points

The normal minimum entry requirement for undergraduate degree courses is the possession of 4 GCSEs (Grade C/4 or above) and a minimum of 2 A Levels (or equivalent Level 3 qualifications).

Shortlisted applicants may be invited to attend an interview and to provide a portfolio for consideration

T Levels may be used to meet the entry tariff requirements for this course. Find out more about T levels as UCAS tariff points here.

Other information

If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the Admissions Office on 01905 855111 or email admissions@worc.ac.uk for advice.

Further information about the UCAS Tariff can be obtained from http://www.ucas.com

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Course content

Course content

Our courses are informed by research and current developments in the discipline and feedback from students, external examiners and employers. Modules do therefore change periodically in the interests of keeping the course relevant and reflecting best practice. The most up-to-date information will be available to you once you have accepted a place and registered for the course. If there are insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, this might not be offered, but we will advise you as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative. 

Year 1

Mandatory

  • Introduction to Writing  
  • Writing Poetry
  • Writing Fiction
  • Drawing for Illustrators
  • Image and text

Optional

  • Illustration: Digital Processes
  • Illustration and Printmaking

Year 2

Mandatory

  • Writer as Researcher

Optional

  • The Writing Professional
  • Environmental Writing
  • Writing for Children
  • Slam, Spoken Word, and Performance Poetry
  • Collabowriting  
  • Genre Fiction
  • Work Project Module
  • Visual Statement 
  • Illustration Forms and Genres
  • Location Drawing and Reportage

Year 3

Mandatory

  • Contemporary Practice

Optional

  • Extended Writing Project
  • Hypermedia – Creative Writing in a Digital Culture
  • New Nature Writing
  • Contemporary Poetry
  • Creative Non-Fiction
  • Indie Publishing
  • Writing Witchcraft
  • International Exchanges
  • Writing for Performance
  • Final Research Project
  • Professional Practice
  • Authorial Practice
  • Negotiated Project
  • Negotiated Project 1
2 female students and 1 male student working at table

Joint Honours

Discover our full range of joint degrees and read about how your degree will be structured.

Find out more about studying a joint honours course
Teaching and assessment

Teaching and assessment

For more information about teaching, learning and assessment on this course, please see the single honours course pages for Creative Writing BA (Hons) and Illustration BA (Hons).

Both these subject areas are ‘practice-based’, and you learn primarily through ‘doing’. Their interests and preoccupations are highly complementary and studying them as Joint Honours is therefore full of possibility. In your final year, there is the opportunity to produce a piece of work that showcases your development in both subject areas: for example, you might both write the text and produce the illustrations for a proposed book. In today’s world of multimedia communication and publishing, illustrators and writers work together in a multitude of contexts and, in addition, the transferable skills that they need also open up possibilities for careers in other, very diverse employment sectors.   

Creative Writing aims to nurture your confidence as a writer and to support your development as a critical and skilful analyst of your own and others’ writing. Throughout, you will be immersed in intellectual issues informing the discipline and practices of writing and learn to place your own writing within contexts of published work. You will develop expertise in commercial practice (writing for magazines, reviewing, scriptwriting, editing) and understanding of publishing and marketing processes alongside working towards your own creative development.

You will work with published writers, professional publishers and editors with a variety of specialisms including poetry, travel writing, writing for the screen, writing fiction, writing for performance, writing for children, feature writing, blogging and copy writing. Your development and achievements will be assessed by means of a wide variety of writing ‘tasks.’ In your third year, you will undertake a major writing project of your choice, mentored by members of the course team, alongside participating in a range of activity designed to support you to prepare for progression once you have graduated.

Illustration aims to cover the complete range of illustration genres and forms, including children’s books, editorial and magazine illustration, the graphic novel, reportage, authorial illustration and advertising. With its comprehensive foundation in drawing during students’ first year, it will support development of your work across a wide range of applications encompassing traditional techniques and digital realisation. Cross media projects are encouraged and, in your final year, there is increasing emphasis on growing your knowledge of, and interaction with, professional contexts of illustration. You are taught by lecturers who, themselves, are also professional, published illustrators.

Both subject areas are committed to supporting your understanding of the range of possibilities that could be available to you on graduation, and there are opportunities to explore postgraduate study as well as to investigate, with those who are already following them, career paths in:

  • teaching
  • the creative and cultural industries
  • the media
  • marketing
  • PR
  • other employment sectors in which arts graduates find work

You'll be given the opportunity to publish your work from the very first week and throughout your undergraduate programme. You'll be able to write for a range of digital, print, audio, visual and performance platforms, including getting involved in the student writing magazine: The Fuse.

The Illustration teaching is led by a team of permanent staff including Tobias Hickey, whose professional achievements are acknowledged in international illustration contexts.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest Creative Writing programme specification and Illustration programme specification documents.

Cheryl Howard

Cheryl Howard is the 2013/14 winner of the Worcestershire County Council Illustration scholarship. Her work was exhibited in the New Art West Midlands exhibitions (Birmingham Art Museum and the Barber Art Institute) as well as in the Creative Quarterly in New York. Cheryl says of her experience on the course:

“The support and advice on the Illustration course at Worcester have enabled me to discover strengths in my own visual language. Through embracing the modules to try different media, including print making and collage, it challenged me to understand different briefs and what would enable a strong visual concept.”

Heather Sykes

Heather Skyes

Heather Sykes a Creative Writing and Illustration student who graduates in September embraced life at university to the full, getting involved in extra-curricular activities and working as a student ambassador.

“After attending an Open Day, I loved the green spaces in the city and how friendly the people here are, but also, I felt the staff and students I spoke to on the day were very friendly and happy,” she said. “The University of Worcester was also the only place in the UK that offered the joint in Creative Writing and Illustration which was so unique and aligned perfectly with my interest in children's books.”

Heather is now working part-time as a Content Writing Assistant and is hoping to break into the world of publishing, with a key interest in children's publishing.

Read Heather’s full case study here.

Meet the team

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course

tobias-hickey

Tobias Hickey

Tobias Hickey lectures in illustration, drawing and printmaking. Graduating with a degree in Graphic Design from Liverpool Polytechnic in 1992 and subsequently gaining his MA Illustration from Central St Martin's College of Arts and Design in 1995.

Tobias initially took on commissions to illustrate children's books. His freelance practice then broadened into design and advertising and he became an established editorial illustrator, with regular commissions for The Guardian, The Times The Observer and The Independent newspapers. His illustrations have been published throughout Europe and in Australia.

Dr Jack McGowan

Dr Jack McGowan

Jack’s research focuses on contemporary poetry and poetics, and he specializes in the development of performance poetry in the UK since the mid-20th century, and the oral roots of poetry.

Jack is a performance poet with 10 years of experience on the UK spoken word scene and he writes for both performance and page publication.

Desdemona McCannon

Desdemona McCannon

Desdemona writes about illustration, teaches illustration, organises conferences and exhibitions about illustration, and is a practising illustrator.

Andy Davies

Andy Davies

Andy has worked as a professional freelance illustrator and educator since 2004 and joined the University of Worcester in 2011. He uses his professional practice experience and research interests within his teaching, helping students to develop their understanding of visual communication. His artwork has been used in an editorial context by magazines and newspapers, in marketing campaigns, and for several children's books. To date, his work has been shown in exhibitions in the UK, USA, South Korea, Slovakia and Italy and publications including: 'AOI Images 29, 31 and 35', 'Creative Quarterly Journal', 'Mail me Art: Going Postal with the World's Best Illustrators', 'How to create a Portfolio' and 'Icon'. His work can be viewed on his website: https://andyrobertdavies.com/

stephen-fowler

Stephen Fowler

Stephen Fowler was born in Bristol, grew up in Cornwall, before leaving to study Illustration at Harrow School of Art, and Central Saint Martins in London. After graduating he worked as a freelance editorial Illustrator for newspapers and magazines such as Design Week, Creative Review, Conde Nast, Redwood Publishing, Men's Health, Independent, New Law Journal, Haymarket Publishing, Illustrated Ape, BBC Worldwide Publications, Big Issue, Computer Active, Diesel Style Lab, Dennis Publishing, Time Out and Times Educational Supplement.

For the past 15 years, alternative printmaking, rubber stamping and small press publications, became the focus of Fowler's Authorial Illustration practice. His prints, zines and artist books have been exhibited and held in international collections such as the Tate Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, West Yorkshire Print Workshop, Northern Print Newcastle, Arnolfini Bristol, Minnesota Centre for Book Arts, Malmö Artists Book Biennial and White Columns New York.

Katy Wareham Morris smiling at camera

Katy Wareham Morris

Katy leads the BA Hons in Media & Culture, a dynamic course which responds to innovations in media forms and applications as well as contemporary cultural issues. Katy is particularly interested in how digital technologies have changed media industries and the way audiences respond to them; and, media futures including immersive media. Katy interrogates media representations created by and representing identities and cultures which have been historically marginalised and challenge the white, middle class, patriarchal tradition. Katy is a proud working class, disabled, female academic and, a published poet.

Ruth Stacey Profile Image

Ruth Stacey

Ruth is based in Bredon 190. As Admissions Tutor for Creative Writing she is responsible for processing new applications for study and recruitment of new students. This includes attending open days, organising events, visiting schools and colleges, and collecting student testimonials for the Creative Writing blog.

A prize-winning writer, Ruth is interested in reclaiming maligned or forgotten voices in her work, combining historical research with imagined memoir to create a new document that allows a different perspective on the historical person. Ruth is currently writing symbolist poetry as part of her research for her PhD at the University of Northumbria.  The creative aspect of the project is an imagined memoir of the tarot artist Pamela Colman Smith.

Ruth is widely published and has taught literature and writing to all age groups, including in schools and with Writing West Midlands youth groups. An experienced freelance writer and copywriter, Ruth also helped to start the indie press V.Press and worked as the illustrator for the press for seven years.

Careers

Careers

Creative Writing and Illustration graduates go on to work in sectors such as publishing, the media, marketing and communications. Graduates will find career opportunities not only in illustration but also television motion graphics, graphic design, story writing, studio management and advertising.

The Creative Writing section of this course will provide a foundation for students who are interested in developing writing as a profession, for example in the creative industries and/or commercial markets and an understanding of how writers make a living.

The course also provides an excellent basis for further study or for self-employment as a freelance writer. Graduates from this course will be very successful candidates for careers in teaching because of the emphasis on writing in the new English curricula. 

Illustrators are in increasing demand as the media industries expand. Options for the professional illustrator include newspapers and magazines, books, advertising, exhibiting independent work, television and the internet. All these fields are potential showcases for graduates’ work.

Final Year Art Shows

The Worcester Degree Shows are the culmination of work from students on the University of Worcester's arts courses.

Visit the website
Costs

Fees and funding

Full-time tuition fees

UK and EU students

The standard fee for full-time home and EU undergraduate students enrolling on BA/BSc/LLB degrees and FdA/FdSc degrees in the 2024/25 academic year is £9,250 per year.

For more details, please visit our course fees page.

International students

The standard tuition fee for full-time international students enrolling on BA/BSc/LLB degrees and FdA/FdSc degrees in the 2024/25 academic year is £16,200 per year.

For more details, please visit our course fees page.

Part-time tuition fees

UK and EU students

The standard tuition fees for part-time UK and EU students enrolling on BA/BSc/LLB degrees and FdA/FdSc degrees in the academic year 2024/25 are £1,156 per 15-credit module, £1,542 per 20-credit module, £2,312 per 30-credit module, £3,083 per 40-credit module, £3,469 per 45-credit module and £4,625 per 60 credit module.

For more details, please visit our course fees page.

Additional costs

Every course has day-to-day costs for basic books, stationery, printing and photocopying. The amounts vary between courses.

If your course offers a placement opportunity, you may need to pay for an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

Accommodation

Finding the right accommodation is paramount to your university experience. Our halls of residence are home to friendly student communities, making them great places to live and study.

We have over 1,000 rooms across our range of student halls. With rooms to suit every budget and need, from our 'Traditional Hall' at £131 per week to 'En-suite Premium' at £221 per week (2024/25 prices).

For full details visit our accommodation page.

How to apply

How to apply

Creative Writing and Illustration BA (Hons) - WW82

UCAS is the central organisation through which applications are processed for entry onto full-time undergraduate courses in Higher Education in the UK.

Read our How to apply pages for more information on applying and to find out what happens to your application.

UCAS Code

WW82

Get in touch

If you have any questions, please get in touch. We're here to help you every step of the way.

Ruth Stacey

Admissions Tutor, Creative Writing

Tobias Hickey

Course Leader, Illustration