Contra-corriente, Helena Sbeghen

Master in Illustration and Comics

The Master in Illustration and Comics will teach you to conceptualize an idea and capture it graphically using your own voice as an illustration and design professional. Expand your skills and learn new graphic languages to respond to the demands of the professional market.

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Presentation

The profile of the contemporary cartoonist and illustrator has changed over the past two decades. Professionals have reinvented themselves and adapted to the new era of digital culture. Graphic languages have gained an enormous visibility, since the sector is booming. Today, technology is intertwined with the world of illustration and comics in different ways, so professionals in the sector must be flexible when it comes to the conception, production, distribution and promotion of their work.

In the Master in Illustration and Comics you’ll discover how to grow as a professional and find your own identity. You’ll study the recent history of illustration, and you’ll gain a global vision of the current landscape of graphic narrative. You’ll experiment with new graphic languages and enrich your visual culture by creating an illustrated album, a graphic novel and hybrid formats.

The student profile centres on people with imagination, creativity and a great attention to detail who are passionate about representing a meaningful idea or story through graphic means, in the form of illustration and comics.

Access and Admission Requirements: An official university degree or equivalent in Graphic Design or Fine Arts. A portfolio and familiarity with illustration software.

Where to study illustration and comic on Spain?

If you are thinking about studying illustration or comics in Spain but you still don’t know where to go, you should know that Barcelona provides a unique setting, with a singular architecture and a particular culture that will help you enter the graphic language sector from an interdisciplinary and enriching perspective. In recent years, Barcelona has become the capital of design and comics in the country.

Studying illustration and comic in Barcelona

Barcelona is an open and diverse city that welcomes students and professionals from all over the world. It is known for its high quality of life, which is the reason why many companies and institutions have decided to establish their main activity centre in Barcelona. For all these reasons, it is now a reference city on a national and international scale.

In this sense, Elisava is undoubtedly one of the most recommended schools to study illustration and comics in Barcelona. Our advanced teaching system will provide you with the necessary tools to become the illustrator, cartoonist or editor that the changing sector of graphic languages demands.

Moreover, our school is located in one of the most emblematic areas of the city, renowned for its historical and cultural value and, most importantly, for its vitality. It is therefore an exceptional setting in which to take the first steps in your career and lay the foundations for your professional future.

Objectives

Understanding and incorporating the changes in the professions of illustrator, commercial artist and graphic creatives.
Mastering the keys to gaining visibility and relevance in the world of illustration, comics and graphic creation.
Learning about and experiencing the phases of working on and completing a commercial and/or personal project.
Coming into contact with leading professionals in the sector today.
Developing your personal values, as well as your personal brand, breaking down ingrained mechanisms or prejudices.
Delving into experimental languages and techniques to enhance your own individuality.

Highlights

Avant-garde creation

In this Master’s degree you will learn first-hand about the current landscape of illustration and the keys to the main areas of the profession, as well as coming into contact with avant-garde graphic languages.

Practical classes

Through practical projects you’ll discover your own voice – something that’s essential for a relevant career given the myriad proposals offered by digital culture today, in this dizzying moment of technological and social change.

Immersion in visual culture

Through lectures given by leading professionals in the sector, visits to museums, galleries, studios, and contemporary culture spaces, you’ll have the opportunity to reflect and gain a critical perspective on the sector.

Contact with professionals

The programme is taught by celebrated professionals from the industry of illustration, graphic novel and comics. You’ll develop your Master’s Final Project in direct contact with active professional editors, who can help you access the labour market.

Master in Illustration and Comics programme

1 Contemporary illustration

Basic knowledge and concepts to complete an illustrated commission, from the conception of the idea to its materialization in areas like the press or the publishing sector.

1.1 Concept and representation
1.2 Press
1.3 Cover illustration
1.4 Illustrated book
1.5 Collective publication
1.6 Illustration and product

2 Graphic narrative

Professional processes of comic artists, and you’ll be able to narrate complex plots in a sequential graphic manner through illustration.

2.1 The language of comics
2.2 Script
2.3 Deconstructed comic
2.4 Self-publishing
2.5 Moving drawings

3 Graphic languages

Graphic languages, techniques and processes, experimenting first-hand with the goal of incorporating them into your practice as a creator.

3.1 Visual poetics
3.2 Character development and concept art
3.3 Lettering
3.4 Sketching
3.5 Muralism

4 Visual culture

Phenomenology and historical currents related to illustration and comics. You’ll reflect on current events and issues, in addition to visiting museums, studios and contemporary cultural spaces.

4.1 Visual culture
4.2 Phenomenologies of illustration
4.3 Phenomenologies of comics

5 Editorial project

You’ll make an illustrated album or a graphic novel that will serve as a calling card as you begin or restart your professional career.

5.1 Final project
5.2 Professional planning

6 Digital project

You’ll take a deep dive into digital illustration, where static images are no longer the only option, and you can play with small animations.

If you want to know more about the Master in Illustration and Comics download the brochure here:

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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…

Masters’ Scholarships

Do you want to study the Master in Illustration and Comics 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.