MA/PgDip Art and Design: Creative Technology

You can progress into high level creative industry careers in areas such as entertainment, multimedia, motion graphics, advertising and broadcast media, visual arts, computer animation, virtual reality, communication technologies, games development and computer-aided design. A number of our graduates gain employment in academic research and teaching.

MA Art & Design: Creative Technology students follow a number of diverse career paths that highlight the course’s interdisciplinary approach to creative technology. Career paths cover a wide range of creative industry-related directions – from practising interactive media artists and computer graphic designers working in the field of motion graphics, internet and web design and authoring to interactive video production and multimedia designers, game design and interactive installation art and design.

A number of past students have also taken academic career paths in both teaching and research across the creative technology spectrum – from the arts and design to computer sciences. It is the course’s philosophy to help you to discover new career paths and advance existing ones.

The course strives to identify new creative practice and industries by encouraging diversity and innovation through creative thinking, which promotes new and diverse professional career paths, turning you into a unique and talented future employee in this changing creative industry sector.

Alumni Profile

Rebecca Kesler did an undergraduate visual arts course before taking the MA Creative Technology to focus her skills more on digital art instead of general art.

“The course has continued to feed my thirst for learning and provided me with both a theory and practical base to work on. The best parts of the course have included learning to programme and creating an electronic instrument for the Digital Avant-Garde module.” Rebecca Kesler, 2012

Alan Hook, Lecturer in Interactive Media, in the School of Media, Film & Journalism at the University of Ulster. Graduated 2010  

“I took a PGCE at Manchester University in 2005/06 and started teaching secondary design and technology at West London Academy in September 2006. The course at Salford gave me a more in-depth understanding of my own views in technology/art/design and has helped me professionally in teaching.” Gareth Whittaker, graduated 2006  

Industry Links

Creative Technology postgraduates are prepared for a digitally networked global culture and they are as likely to design for the screen as for print, using interactive as well as linear motion graphics, sound as well as coding and hardware development. It is this ability to work cross platform that appeals to many students. MA Art and Design: Creative Technology is based at MediaCityUK, and you will have the added bonus of being taught among BBC departments and hundreds of creative and digital agencies.

Our students develop valuable key skills and engage with industry throughout the programme of study. You will receive guidance on professional practice and entrepreneurship (highlighted by the government as a key opportunity for growth of the economy) and many of our students set up their own creative media and design companies.

Graduates work in many areas of art, design and technology and move into careers in graphic design, interactive and web design, industrial design, fine arts, games design, computer science, psychology and architecture, or set up their own businesses. Many students also go on to study at a postgraduate research level. Graduates have secured jobs locally, nationally and internationally at companies such as Amaze Europe, Great Fridays, the BBC Interactive, Sandbox UCLAN, The Owl Project, Lets Go Global, the Arts Council England, the University of Ulster, Trafford and Manchester Colleges and the University of Salford.

Charles Robertson, Interactive Producer, BBC Entertainment Manchester

“I completed an MA in Creative Technology at Salford in 2006. I'm working as an interactive producer for entertainment at BBC Manchester. As part of that, I am responsible for developing new interactive content and I work with other people, including students, to produce games and other content for our output.”

Further Study

Research in the School of Art & Design is coordinated by Professor Paul Sermon, Associate Head Research. There are over 30 fully research-active academic staff and a number of embryonic and early career researchers engaged in a range of innovative creative practice in art and design and in advancing the boundaries of theoretical investigation. Find out more on the school's research pages