New Zealand Diploma in Arts and Design

What courses will I do?

During this programme you will complete four compulsory courses in:

• Advanced Critical Studies (Lab and Project)
• Professional Practice (Lab and Project)

You will also take four elective courses, in an area of your choosing:

• Advanced Lens-based Media (Lab and/or Project)
• Advanced Graphic Design
• Advanced Graphic Design - Motion Graphics
• Advanced Object Design (Lab and/or Project)
• Advanced Image Making (Lab and/or Project)

Upon successful completion of this programme you will be able to:

• Apply specialised skills and theoretical knowledge in the production of work in a selected area of arts, craft and/or design
• Use investigative tools with creative processes, methods and technologies to synthesise ideas and solve problems in a selected area of arts, craft and/or design
• Critically analyse research findings to support the development of ideas and to position own work within conventions and contexts in arts, craft, and/or design
• Critically evaluate work, communicate to a range of audiences, and present own resolved work in a real-world context
• Demonstrate leadership and professional practice to manage projects/briefs and prepare for selected career pathways in arts, craft and/or design

After you graduate from this programme, you will have the skills and knowledge to work:

• in an intermediate-level position in arts, craft and design industries (e.g. production and/or design roles)
• as an arts administrator (e.g. in theatres, museums, auction houses, art galleries)
• in sales and advertising
• or be self employed, acting as a freelancer

 Completion of this programme also pathways into the third year of the Bachelor of Arts and Media.

Courses on this programme require prior knowledge or experience in the subject or completion of the Level 5 pre-requisite course.

Please contact us if you feel you have the required knowledge and experience for direct entry, to discuss options for recognition of prior learning.

Additional requirements

Please see the Supporting documents section for more information and form templates.

What does Creative Work look like?

As part of your application to study the Bachelor of Arts and Media at NMIT, you are asked to show us that you can take something down the creative process, from concept to presentation.

We are open to anything creative:

• Sketches, paintings, video clips, multimedia, photography, life drawings or murals
• Sketchbooks or workbooks showing the development of ideas
• Arts or design works, including both process works and finished works 
• Photographs or slides or recordings relevant to the programme
• Photographic or digital records of any of the above

We are looking for an art applicant’s ability to develop the following:

• Technical skills in arts and/or design
• Design processes and/or concept development

This article about providing creative work(external link) can also help.

Our Creative Industries programmes require you to bring your own device/laptop (BYOD) with Adobe Creative Cloud  installed in order to complete your studies.

BYOD specifications for Creative Industries programmes

The following BYOD specifications are required for:

• Bachelor of Arts and Media
• NZ Diploma in Arts and Design (Level 5)
• NZ Diploma in Arts and Design (Level 6)

The minimum specifications required are:

• 	Minimum specifications
  Processor	Intel or AMD Multi-Core Processor
  Operating System	Microsoft Windows 10 (64 bit) versions 1903 and later. Note: Win version 1607 is not supported.
  RAM	16 GB minimum (32 GB recommended)
  GPU	2GB of GPU VRAM. (4GB or more recommended) Adobe strongly recommends updating to NVIDIA driver 451.77 or later when using After Effects. Drivers prior to this have a known issue which can lead to a crash.
  Hard disk space	15GB of available hard-disk space; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removeable flash storage devices) Additional disk space for disk cache (64GB+ recommended)
  Monitor resolution	1920 x 1080 or greater display resolution
  Internet	Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, validation of subscriptions and access to online services

Discrete graphics are not mandatory but are strongly suggested as there are several aspects of the degree which can require considerable graphics power. 

Optional items include:

• optical drive (DVD)
• web cam

Can I use an Apple product?

Across our programmes, we use Microsoft Windows based applications. As such we can only sanction Windows based laptops for use on the degree. Please be aware however, that you will not be able to login to our network using an Apple laptop.

You will also need a digital SLR camera to complete the Lens Based Media courses. Find out more here.(external link)