Writing a Personal Statement for Art and Design courses

Introduction

This article is intended to provide advice and suggestions for students who are applying for art and design courses in the UK and who are about to start, or have already started, writing their personal statements. It should be noted that this advice is aimed at those applying for art and design courses at art schools/universities as well as courses that are taught within larger multi faculty universities. Some of this advice is also relevant to applicants hoping to study architecture (particularly applicants applying to architecture courses taught within an art faculty or with a focus on art).

This advice also applies if you are applying directly to a university or college to study an Art & Design Foundation Diploma (FAD) course. 

This advice is less helpful if you are applying for a theoretical course which doesn't include substantial amounts of creative work.

Spelling and Grammar

• The first time I wrote the paragraph above I capitalised "Art", "Design", "Schools", "Universities" and "Architecture". That's because, like most people, I capitalise words that are important to me (so do a lot of university academics!) - but that isn't correct in these cases. None of these words are proper nouns and none should be capitalised.
• Always, ALWAYS, read through your PS out loud (or even better give it to someone who hasn't read it before and ask THEM to read it out loud to you). This is by far the best way to spot grammar errors.
• Around 10% of art and design students are dyslexic. There's also a significant proportion of art and design academic staff who are dyslexic. Remember this - get your spelling checked by someone and make an extra effort to make your PS as easy to read as possible. That means if you possibly can leave blank lines between your paragraphs - so aim for a character count of 3,200-3,600 to stay within the line limits.

Getting Started

Never start a PS at the beginning! Instead copy the questions below into an empty document and write some bullet point answers to them as and when you think of them. You don't have to tackle everything at once and these are just questions to get you thinking about the sorts of things admissions staff are interested in hearing about. Once you've got answers to over half of these questions then you have your first draft - just turn it from bullet points into proper sentences and paragraphs. Don't be afraid of detail and specifics - that is what makes your PS personal and unique to you!

• What first made you want to study this subject?
• What do you love about this subject?
• Tell me about your creative process - where do you start/what inspires your work?
• Tell me about that in relation to a specific piece of work that you are pleased with?
• And one that you're not pleased with? What would you do differently/what did you learn?
• Tell me about a historical artist whose work/process you admire?
• And a contemporary artist whose work you admire?
• Have you visited any exhibitions/galleries that you've enjoyed? What did you see that was good/bad/surprising/upsetting/striking to you?
• Have you read any books/watched documentaries/listened to radio/podcasts about art theory/visual communication/criticism? What was memorable/enjoyable about that? (this is particularly important if you're applying to Fine Art courses at the more old fashioned and theory focused universities)
• Have you submitted work to any exhibitions/competitions? Did you enjoy the experience? What did you learn from it?
• Is there anything you are particularly looking forward to getting stuck into as part of your degree (a new medium/technique? a new approach? a new environment? opportunities to focus or branch out?)?
• Is there anything else that you want to mention (hobbies, extra curriculars, work experience)?

Redrafting

Is boring but necessary. Again don't feel like you have to tackle everything at once.

Use other people - give your PS to people you trust (who know about art and those who don't) and give them two highlighters. Get them to highlight anything they find interesting (and use the other highlighter to highlight anything they don't understand or that seems boring).

Then ignore them if you want to - it's YOUR PS! But reread your PS through the eyes of a stranger and decide whether there's anything that needs adding/removing.

Read it out loud and get someone else to read it out loud. Use this to sort out your wording and try to arrange your sentences so that they flow well and to arrange your paragraphs so that there's a natural progression from one subject to the next (this is very individual to you - there's no right or wrong order).

Remember if you talk about specific pieces of work that you're likely to be asked to provide a portfolio at some point - so normally you would include any work you talk about in your portfolio. Make sure you're happy with that (you don't have to do that if it's something that didn't turn out - unless you manage to re-work it or reproduce it more successfully).

Things to avoid

• Work/activities that aren't current. Your portfolio and PS should be focused on things you've done in the last year or two. 
• Writing an essay or book review. The people reading your PS know about your subject - you don't have to explain it to them.
• Fancy language. Your PS should be to-the-point, you don't need to impress anyone with your vocabulary.
• Worrying too much. Your PS isn't going to be the deciding factor in whether you get an offer or not - your portfolio and qualifications are far more important. Do your best but don't beat yourself up if you're struggling or you don't think it is perfect.

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