Master in Art Direction and New Narratives

An explorative, experimental, and cross-disciplinary vision of art direction, that propels aesthetic expression with the power of narrative and disruption.

How to apply

Presentation

The MA in Art Direction & New Narratives reimagines visual communication studies as an ongoing workshop grounded in three key principles: experience, experimentation, and expression, aiming to uncover unique and groundbreaking concepts and aesthetics.

The master adopts a comprehensive perspective on art direction, engaging students actively across various expressive mediums and their language such as photography, mix media animation, video, editorial design, and generative A.I.

The programme encourages the generation of fresh narratives through creative exploration, from initial research to the final product. With an emphasis in concept development, the course blends disciplines, navigating between digital and analog realms, and fusing realities with virtual worlds to craft relevant visual stories.

In the master, the role of the art director extends beyond interpreting aesthetic visions; they are also collaborators, creators, and producers, driving projects from conceptual ideas to its creative realization.

Across the different modules and projects, this master will emphasize and explore diverse topics of contemporary interest, while questioning and reinterpreting traditional creative methods to find unexpected aesthetic strategies. All from the perspective of diverse
expressive languages, like photography, animation, fashion, or even gaming.

All along this master there is a good dose of disruption, according to which we merge fields, we play between the digital and analog, and we hybridise realities and metaverses. Everything to create relevant and outstanding visual narratives.

Access and Admission Requirements: Degree official university degree or equivalent to Graphic Design, Audiovisual Communication, Advertising, Fine Arts, etc.

At Elisava you can take master and postgraduate courses of different degrees of specialisation that combine theoretical knowledge, reflection, experimentation, and practical projects. Find the design master you are looking for.

Study a master’s degree in art direction

If you want to study art direction courses in Barcelona, the Master in Art Direction and New Narratives will provide you an interdisciplinary journey through communication, art, technology, design and society. You will learn creativity and aesthetics as guiding principles to enrich the practice of art direction.

The programme teaches how to craft impactful images and experiences to convey emotions effectively, while bridging timeless narrative elements with contemporary trends and technology.

The master starts with creative theory, methodology and inspiration, which are then tested, critiqued, and redefined throughout the programme. Every tool and theory will be applied in workshops designed to equip you with the necessary skills and mindset to create memorable visual narratives across various languages and creative industries.


Objectives

  • Promoting a disruptive view that allows for an out-of-the-ordinary approach to creation: the main value a creative can have in the current context.
  • Providing a competitive and innovative professional profile that integrates the latest criteria and trends in today’s communication market.
  • Promoting the transition between creative fields, a main value in a constantly changing market.
  • Providing students with the necessary methodology for the analysis, conceptualization and formal definition of an aesthetic strategy.
  • Encouraging the interrelation of creative media with the use of references, in order to apply them in visual and audiovisual projects.
  • Emphasizing the preponderant role of aesthetic strategy as a transformative, economic and social value.
  • Providing the tools to propel projects, under a personal brand, a profile and a defined unique style.
  • Training creative professionals with a strategic vision in the context of communication and art direction, so that they elaborate real and efficient solutions to the problems posed in the context of the current market.
  • Mastering the competences and functions of the art director, able to create and direct projects in the field of visual messages.

Highlights

MA in Art Direction and New Narratives programme

1 Disruption and creation: tools and methodology

Art direction as a conceptualizing discipline, creator of visual narratives and aesthetic strategy. During this chapter, you will learn the necessary conceptual and methodological foundations for you to follow or disrupt.

2 Metamodernisms

Analysis of the evolution of cinematographic language, studying the political, social, technological and contextual aspects of the industry up to the present day. You will connect with multiple beauty categories and we will learn to transform brand values into recognizable codes for our audiences. Collaboration with the Sitges Film Festival.

3 Narrative and gamification

New technologies generate virtual spaces for coexistence, where people can develop their identities beyond physical reality. New universal languages are emerging, which are great opportunities for art direction.

4 Creative content

This module will provide you with a scientific basis to develop a communication action with a pre-established purpose, understanding the interests and motivations of the public, their aesthetic values and communication codes. In the end, you will acquire the tools to plan and generate 360 campaigns, with a global and multi-channel perspective, taking into account digital trends, content and storytelling.

5 Firestarter

We will address in a real way the production of an event from staging to the communication campaign, in which the whole group will work together for a common purpose: activate emotions of an audience in a show powered by neurobiology and music.

6 Mix media laboratory

You will experiment with different expressive formats and combine them in search of unexpected associations between the analog and digital worlds. We will combine and experiment with dierent expressive formats in the search of unexpected associations between the analogue and digital world. We will begin with the more tactile arts, in order to blend these into the digital spectrum.

7 Analog visual poetry

Review of the basic principles of visual communication, from the multiple expressive resources that build a verbal message to the composition and elements of an image. After exploring the relationship between image and word, you will apply it in an editorial project.

8 The mirror: self-reflection and creative identity

You will discover, analyze and strengthen your creative talent, aesthetics and personal styles, to formulate proposals with personality and originality. The development of a strong creative identity is essential to find collaborations that fit your interests or ambitions, and greater opportunities in the hypersharing age. To achieve this, we will question the idea of identity, exploring our goals and debating about self expression.

9 Fashion industry: mentality, sense and logic

In this workshop and module, we will dive into the components of one of the strongest creative industries. The fashion industry is in constant search of new forms and expressions. We will condense all the knowledge acquired throughout the master in an art direction project guided by the disruption that impacts this industry.

If you want to know more about the Master in Art Direction and New Narratives download the brochure here or check the master’s website:

Do you want to know more about the Masters’ School?

Each academic year, students with very diverse professional and cultural profiles of more than 80 nationalities from all over the world attend their master’s or postgraduate training at Elisava. We want to promote connections and networks among students beyond the context of each master’s degree to promote the exchange of knowledge through very diverse projects: we organize interdisciplinary workshops and conferences; transdisciplinary projects with students from several master’s degrees; collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs…

Interdisciplinary workshops Collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs Elisava Masters’ Talks and lectures Elisava Alumni

Masters’ Scholarships

Do you want to study the MA in Art Direction and New Narratives at Elisava? In this section you will be able to check all the information on the annual call for scholarships, which recognize, reward and disseminate the talent and excellence of future master’s students.