[wingspari]

Hello!
I was wandering if you guys could share your opinions about these colleges for a art foundation (and in comparison to each other) Thank you!


- Kingston University
- UAL ICC (London College of Communication)
- Plymouth
- Leeds College of Art
- Loughborough University of Art & Design
- University College Falmouth
- Cental Saint Martins


BA Degrees - what so you think of Anglia Ruskin (cambridge) Illustration BA?

Thank you!

[beccafairy]

i've never heard of art foundation at plymouth, or illustration at anglia ruskin, but the rest of the places you mentioned are great for art foundations.

personally i wouldn't go to loughborough or falmouth because of the locations (nothing to do, falmouth is really far away from everything, loughborough is quite a shabby town etc), but if that doesn't bother you the courses themselves are really good. just be weary that with falmouth i'd imagine it would be very expensive to get to open days and interviews!

you can only apply to one college at UAL so you'd have to pick between CSM and LCC. CSM is harder to get into, but if you were accepted you'd be around other highly skilled people, whereas LCC is good if you know what you want to do at the start of the course as you can build a specialised portfolio in a certain pathway right from day one, exploring it in more depth than you would in any other foundation course. UAL also have a foundation course at camberwell (CCW), which is where their illustration BA is based so you may want to look into that too.

leeds college of art is great, the building is really spacious with huge studios and the people are friendly, plus the course starts in august so you can get ahead of the other courses that start in september. they're picky about their applicants too - a friend of mine who got into the foundations at loughborough and camberwell was only offered a place at leeds when more became available, so again, you'd be working alongside some pretty skilled people which is always inspiring.

kingston is the most difficult to get into, and seems like the most intensive course, but as you can imagine the work that comes out of it is of really high quality. it's a very popular course for people who specialise in illustration and graphic design, so definitely check it out.

other art foundations that are on par with these i can think of are the ones at manchester school of art (at manchester met), bournemouth, and oxford brookes.


i hope that's helped you and anyone else that's looking to apply to a top foundation course.

[wingspari]

(Original post by beccafairy)
i've never heard of art foundation at plymouth, or illustration at anglia ruskin, but the rest of the places you mentioned are great for art foundations.

personally i wouldn't go to loughborough or falmouth because of the locations (nothing to do, falmouth is really far away from everything, loughborough is quite a shabby town etc), but if that doesn't bother you the courses themselves are really good. just be weary that with falmouth i'd imagine it would be very expensive to get to open days and interviews!

you can only apply to one college at UAL so you'd have to pick between CSM and LCC. CSM is harder to get into, but if you were accepted you'd be around other highly skilled people, whereas LCC is good if you know what you want to do at the start of the course as you can build a specialised portfolio in a certain pathway right from day one, exploring it in more depth than you would in any other foundation course. UAL also have a foundation course at camberwell (CCW), which is where their illustration BA is based so you may want to look into that too.

leeds college of art is great, the building is really spacious with huge studios and the people are friendly, plus the course starts in august so you can get ahead of the other courses that start in september. they're picky about their applicants too - a friend of mine who got into the foundations at loughborough and camberwell was only offered a place at leeds when more became available, so again, you'd be working alongside some pretty skilled people which is always inspiring.

kingston is the most difficult to get into, and seems like the most intensive course, but as you can imagine the work that comes out of it is of really high quality. it's a very popular course for people who specialise in illustration and graphic design, so definitely check it out.

other art foundations that are on par with these i can think of are the ones at manchester school of art (at manchester met), bournemouth, and oxford brookes.


i hope that's helped you and anyone else that's looking to apply to a top foundation course.

Thanks - I think I'll look into CSM, Kingston and Leeds further!

[hannahbiggles]

This is probably a really late reply to your thread but, I'm starting Illustration at Anglia Ruskin this year, and my friend does Fine Art there. Despite what people say, the art school part of ARU is pretty good and has a good reputation.

That said, you should do a foundation if you're not totally sure what you want to do (I'm glad I did, else I would have done fine art and hated it by now!)
I didn't personally like Kingston, the interviews were horrible (group interview) and I didn't really rate the work they did, but it's all down to opinion. I know a few people who go to Leeds and they absolutely LOVE it there, I've never heard of anyone whose hated it, so it must be pretty good!

I know someone who went to CSM foundation this last year, hated it and dropped out as the year group is so big and they never got any tuition. But, I have heard good things about LCC, especially if you want to do illustration/graphics etc.
My foundation tutors raved about Falmouth, so that's definitely worth a look. But it totally depends what sort of course you're looking for, you could hate ones people love and vice versa, so try and see as many on open days as you can!

[wingspari]

(Original post by hannahbiggles)
This is probably a really late reply to your thread but, I'm starting Illustration at Anglia Ruskin this year, and my friend does Fine Art there. Despite what people say, the art school part of ARU is pretty good and has a good reputation.

That said, you should do a foundation if you're not totally sure what you want to do (I'm glad I did, else I would have done fine art and hated it by now!)
I didn't personally like Kingston, the interviews were horrible (group interview) and I didn't really rate the work they did, but it's all down to opinion. I know a few people who go to Leeds and they absolutely LOVE it there, I've never heard of anyone whose hated it, so it must be pretty good!

I know someone who went to CSM foundation this last year, hated it and dropped out as the year group is so big and they never got any tuition. But, I have heard good things about LCC, especially if you want to do illustration/graphics etc.
My foundation tutors raved about Falmouth, so that's definitely worth a look. But it totally depends what sort of course you're looking for, you could hate ones people love and vice versa, so try and see as many on open days as you can!

Thank you so much! I will definately check those out and try to visit the open days. ^^~~