Art and Design

Along with valuable work experience and intern opportunities, our relationships with industry mean we can respond quickly to marketplace demands. This ensures you graduate with exactly the skills employers tell us they need. Ara graduates are popular with employers because they have a reputation for being highly skilled, industry-ready and keen to contribute their creative energy and ideas from day one.

Our Art and Design facilities are exceptional and we’ve developed impressive, purpose-built environments to enhance your learning.

As an Art and Design student you’ll have access to advanced digital and multimedia technologies in our Mac studios which feature the full Creative Suite from Adobe and the latest Cinema 4D design programme. The Bachelor of Design (Motion Design) is the only degree programme in New Zealand to be using Cinema 4D for modelling, animating, lighting, texturing and rendering.

We have dedicated print facilities for traditional media like woodblock, intaglio, silkscreen and fabric printing, along with digital machines for market-standard printing of large-scale posters, banners and vinyl cut.

Our workrooms are well stocked with specialist tools and equipment for creating fashion garments, art and sculpture. You can book photo shoots within our main studio which features a cyc, full lighting kit and backdrops, or in one of two smaller studios.

There's a range of programmes to feed your creativity and develop your talent including Art and Design and Fashion Technology and Design.

If you think you may require modifications in order to undertake the practical components of a particular course of study, we encourage you to discuss these with us so we can give them careful consideration.

As it may take time to consider and implement any modifications, please contact disability@ara.ac.nz as early as possible prior to the course starting. We’ll also need to check that there’s no risk of harm to you or anyone else before making a final decision.

Throughout this process we’ll communicate with you in a clear and timely manner.

Some of the content of this programme may pertain to current real-world issues that could evoke strong feelings or impact on the wellbeing and academic performance of learners who have experienced corresponding traumas in their own lives.
 
Performers / Broadcasters entertain, inform, engage, and create empathy with their audiences. These interactions bring forth discussion, can foster creative solution development and, most importantly, stimulate the creation of change in the world. This could mean drawing attention to and facilitating dialogue about topics that can be difficult, such as sexuality, gender, abuse, cultural appropriation, or racism.
 
We recognise that our learners bring with them diverse lived experiences. It is our role to create a safe environment for learning to allow for real emotions to come to the surface, and for students to feel well informed and well supported in the process.
 
Some of our strategies for supporting learners to engage with difficult content include:

• Providing trigger warnings that allow learners to prepare emotionally for the content or propose alternative content or an alternative learning activity.
• Providing resiliency or intimacy training as required
• Providing access to wellbeing and counselling support services

It is difficult to anticipate all the topics that might be potentially triggering for learners, and therefore we encourage learners who are experiencing an emotional reaction to content to talk with their tutor or utilise Ara’s support networks.