UAL Foundation Diploma in Art and Design

The Foundation Diploma is designed to prepare students for specialist undergraduate degrees in art and design subjects. It’s a year of exciting projects, new faces and experiences that will inform your future study, career and creative life.

Foundation is widely considered the best preparation for progression to an undergraduate degree in the creative arts in the UK. On this dynamic course, you’ll try different disciplines from across art and design while being supported to fulfil your creative potential and ambitions.

What to expect

• Expert staff: You’ll be taught by highly experienced teams based from the UAL School of Pre-Degree Studies. Skilled technicians will also support you in all of our studios.
• Specialist facilities: Based at UAL School of Pre-Degree Studies, you'll have access to wood, metal, plastic, plaster, textile, stitch, printmaking workshops, photography, 3D printing and laser cutting facilities and a loan store.
• Varied teaching methods: You’ll take part in studio teaching sessions, technical workshops, collaborative projects, group teaching sessions and additional study support sessions.
• Portfolio development: Build a strong portfolio for application onto undergraduate degrees in art and design subjects.
• Progression support: Get advice to help you progress onto further study, including College visits and talks from undergraduate course teams from across UAL.
• UAL library access: You’ll have access to all UAL libraries and learning zones located in our Colleges across London.

If you successfully complete the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, you’ll receive at least 1 offer to a UAL undergraduate course, to start the following September.

We cannot guarantee that you’ll receive an offer for each course that you apply to. In some instances, you may receive an offer for an alternative course or mode of study that you didn’t apply to. The offer or offers you receive will depend on your portfolio and will be made after careful review by College course teams and Admissions Tutors.

Find out more about offers in our 'Progress to a UAL undergraduate degree' section further down this page.

Choosing a mode of study

With over 100 undergraduate courses available at UAL alone, choosing the right one for you can be challenging. The Foundation Diploma in Art and Design course helps you understand where your skills and interests fit within art and design.

When you apply to the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, we’ll ask you to choose from 2 modes of study: Diagnostic or Specialist.

Diagnostic mode

In Unit 1 of the Diagnostic course, you will have the opportunity to explore a range of specialist art and design pathways through tailored projects and workshops. The diagnostic course offers the benefit of engaging with a wide variety of methods, materials, and creative processes, led by our team of industry-expert staff.

Unit 1 typically takes the form of a series of one week thematically linked projects that provide students with a more informed understanding of different creative pathways and their connection to the creative industries. You will also acquire ideation and prototyping skills and strengthen your research process and conceptual development.

The projects are fast-paced and instinctive, encouraging work that is speculative and innovative, often produced using simple materials and processes. The dynamic learning environment promotes shared experience and critical discussion to expand your understanding, ambition and confidence.

For most Diagnostic students, this Unit functions as a process of discovery as well as a confirmatory process. Through your responses to the projects and the work produced during this phase of the course, you will be able to clarify your future direction.

As you move into Unit 2, you are diagnosed into the specialist pathway that best fits your interests and strengths, enabling you to develop a unique portfolio of work for application to further study or industry.

Specialist mode

The specialist mode is best for you if you’re already confident about your future direction. This mode allows you to apply directly to one of 4 curriculum areas: 3D Design, Communication Design, Fashion and Textiles or Fine Art.

The unit typically takes the form of a series of structured, thematically linked workshops and activities, similar to those in the Diagnostic course. Crucially, however, these take place within an overarching discipline area, meaning that progression into Unit 2 is directly tied to the chosen curriculum.

These workshops provide students with a more informed understanding of current approaches to practical and conceptual development across a more focused spectrum of art and design practice.

As you move into Unit 2, you will have been diagnosed into the specialist discipline that best fits your interests and strengths, enabling you to develop a unique portfolio of work for application to further study.

Curriculum areas and pathways

The course is divided into 4 curriculum areas, each with their own specialist pathways:

• 3D Design
• Fashion and Textiles
• Fine Art
• Communication Design.

Curriculum Area 1: 3D Design

We encourage thinking, making, and experimentation across a broad range of subjects including architecture, jewellery, product, performance and film design. You'll experiment with functional, craft based and conceptual design methods. Our explorative approach allows you to investigate processes and materials and develop your making skills.

Curriculum Area 2: Fashion and textiles

We encourage a playful, experimental and fearless approach to exploring form, materials, techniques and processes across a broad range of fashion and textile subjects. You'll complete projects that investigate different fashion specialisms. You'll work with textiles within both fashion and interior contexts and large-scale spatial installations.

Curriculum Area 3: Fine Art

We'll support you to develop your own individual visual language or voice. You'll work on a series of projects to encourage you to learn by doing across different types of media. You'll also develop greater awareness of the link between research, theory and practice, the importance of experimentation and open approaches.

Curriculum Area 4: Communication Design

You'll have the opportunity to explore subjects such as graphic design, illustration, fashion communication, filmmaking and animation. You'll learn new ways to develop and communicate ideas and explore creative thinking and storytelling. You'll develop a practice which engages with and responds to society, culture, politics and the environment. Work will often be in the public domain – as a communication designer, it's  your role to persuade, provoke, inform or entertain your audience.

Alternative offers

We may offer you a place on the course, but in a different mode of study or curriculum area to the one on your application form. This happens when we think your application is strong but believe your strengths and skillset are better suited to a different mode of study or curriculum area.

Progressing onto a UAL undergraduate degree

If you successfully complete the UAL Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, you’ll receive at least 1 offer to a UAL undergraduate course, to start the following September.

Which course will you be offered a place on?

You can apply to any undergraduate course where you meet the entry requirements at one of our 6 Colleges or our Creative Computing Institute.

We can't guarantee that you’ll receive an offer for every course you apply to. In some cases, you may receive an offer for an alternative undergraduate course that you didn’t apply to. This is based on a careful review of your portfolio and happens when we've found another course that better suits your strengths and interests.

How does it work?

To progress onto an undergraduate course at UAL, you must:

• have made your application through The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS)
• successfully pass the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
• be able to meet any other additional entry criteria for the undergraduate course you’re offered a place on.

Find out more about progression from pre-degree to undergraduate study.