In this unprecedented time of major change and new challenges, we have been thrown into the centre of an exciting vortex and have to grab the immense potential at hand.

Ensuring that our students are on the front edge of the new disciplines that will evolve in visual communication means considering new technologies alongside traditional ones, understanding the changed relationship between the designer and society, and moving along a line between making things and making thought. From a Utopian point of view, we are here to help define and build a better world through the development of skilled, aware, creative minds and appropriate action.

Students and staff in CA&D today work alongside each other in an enormous number of disciplines — photography, film, video, text, paint, sound, wood-block type, print, environment and digital. Ideas and creativity are our main medium, and visual intelligence, thoughtfulness and playfulness are the tools of our trade. The role of a communication designer or artist today is no longer limited to a single discipline or linear career path. What is required now is a breadth of skills and personal qualities: the ability to be fluent in a wide range of technical skills and of thinking-through-making backed by rigorous self-criticism; an informed awareness of context and audience; the ability to work collaboratively as well as independently; and above all an idealistic commitment to improve whichever field of the cultural environment they choose to work in. With the accent on individual development within a vibrant and supportive working community, the RCA teaches the parts that other universities cannot reach.