Digital Media Production

Design and create innovative, engaging digital multimedia content, alongside developing your digital design and visual communication skills.

Join a course that scored 100% for “Freedom of students to express ideas, opinions and beliefs”, 92% for “Assessment and Feedback”, and 90% for “The Teaching on my course” in the National Student Survey 2024.

New technologies and changing platforms mean there’s a growing demand for people with the skills to develop creative digital content across social media and many other digital platforms with a specialist understanding of user experience and design and emerging technologies like VR.

Whether it's for businesses, charities, arts organisations and beyond, our BA (Hons) Digital Media Production degree will give you a transferable toolkit to take you on your digital journey. The course will help you develop your artistic vision and technical abilities, while giving you research and analytical skills to strengthen your creative ideas.

You’ll be based in Cambridge School of Art, with access to all our industry-standard software, hardware and extensive facilities. Cambridge is the perfect place to study. It’s a tech hub at the forefront of the digital revolution, often called ‘Silicon Fen’, with digital agencies and companies including Sookio, Onespacemedia, Google, Microsoft and Amazon opening divisions here, as well as creative organisations such as Collusion, Cambridge Museum of Technology and our very own StoryLab Research Institute. Thanks to our links with such companies, you’ll follow briefs and challenges that come straight from industry, and get ongoing support to find placements and work experience. You can also take an optional placement year.

As a BA (Hons) Digital Media Production student at ARU, you’ll develop your digital design and visual communication skills. Our teaching staff and technicians will help you explore, and keep up to date with new industry developments, in areas such as interactive design and animation; video production; digital photography; web design; mobile apps; podcasting; physical computing; user experience and interfaces; motion graphics; immersive storytelling; Virtual Reality; 360 film-making and other technologies.

Throughout your course you’ll have the chance to work on collaborative projects. This is a great way to develop highly sought-after transferable skills such as team working, project planning, digital portfolio creation and marketing. These are among the skills highlighted by Microsoft as the 'future of work'.

At the end of your degree you’ll showcase your work in our Degree Show, which is attended every year by industry professionals and recruitment agencies.

Industry-standard facilities

As a Digital Media Production student at ARU, you’ll have access to facilities including:

• dedicated Mac and PC suites with the latest software including Adobe Creative Suite

• film studios, VR and 360 cameras, sound studios and video editing suites

• photography facilities including darkrooms, photographic studios, and film processing and digital printing suites

• professional equipment loans

• Ruskin Gallery, a professional digital art gallery

• 3D workshops for physical media including wood, plastic, metal, and clay.

Careers

By completing our BA (Hons) Digital Media Production course you'll be prepared for roles including digital media design, web design, social media analysis, content writing, videography, motion graphic art and interactive design. But you’ll also be ready for near-future careers such as digital culture commentator or designer. You might even invent your own new role in this exciting cultural landscape.

Students graduating in 2022 have gone on to roles including Multimedia Designer at CEG Cambridge Education Group, Social Media Account Manager at The Ivy Rose Agency, and Social Media Officer at ARU.

Year 1 core modules: Fundamentals of Digital Media; Thinking Digital: A Practical History of Digital Media; Digital Content Creation; Introduction to User Experience Design. Year 2 core modules: Critical Issues and Debates; Motion Graphics; Immersive Storytelling; Photography Post-Production Workflow; Ruskin Module. Year 3 core modules: Digital Media Specialised Practice; Digital Media Major Project. Year 3 optional modules: Research Project; Working in the Creative Industries. Modules are subject to change and availability.

Our modules allow you to demonstrate your progress by producing coursework to set projects, and formal briefs. At the end of each semester you’ll submit a portfolio of work for practice-based modules, and a written document for contextual/theoretical modules. These will be graded and you’ll receive written feedback.
You’ll also receive ongoing feedback on your design project concepts and develop your learning in taught sessions, one-to-one discussions, project reviews, peer to peer feedback and group critiques.