Art Design & Printing @ DIT

The School of Art, Design and Printing is one of the largest in the Irish higher education sector, providing a wide range of innovative, inter-disciplinary and professional level educational and research programmes in visual communication, digital and online design, typography, imagemaking, moving image, interior design, furniture design, product design, painting, sculpture, printmaking, printing technology, printing management and publishing.

In 2003, the School launched a BSc programme in Product Design in collaboration with the College of Engineering & Built Environment and the College of Business at DIT. More recently, the School has developed an innovative online distance education programme in the visual arts in cooperation with the Sherkin Island Development Society on Sherkin Island off the west coast of Cork. This programme which allowed the school to develop its expertise in remote and online learning and new pedagogical strategies in visual arts education has completed its pilot phase and has been developed into a four-year BA in Visual Art. We deliver the only Design and Visual Merchandising programme for the retail sector in Ireland. Other new programme proposals include a new BA in Visual and Critical Studies in addition to the recently validated BA in Creative and Cultural Industries and BA in Print and Digital Media Technology Management.

The Department of Print & Digital is the National Centre for Excellence in Training and Education for the Print & Packaging Sector. A range of professional development courses have been developed for the Print and Packaging sector Skillnets over the last three years and in 2008 the School launched a new MA in Professional Design Practice in association with Design Ireland Skillnets targeted at senior designers in the Irish Design industry.

The school has also developed an active postgraduate research profile and since 2005 the number of MPhil and PhD students has increased to 12. A suite of taught masters programmes will commence in 2011 offering opportunities in drawing, typography and furniture design initially.

Community links play an important role in the School's activities leading to projects with The National Drug Treatment Centre, the Larkin Centre for the Unemployed, Fighting Words, the Mater and Children's Hospital Development Initiative.

The school is represented on the Executive Board of European League of the Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) and Association Typographic Internationale (ATypI) and is a member of the international design education network CUMULUS. Academic staff also play an active role in organisations such as International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD), Institute of Designers in Ireland (IDI), Visual Artists Ireland (VAI), Print & Packaging Forum. Barry Sheehan, lecturer in Interior Design is a past president of IDI and Liam Sharkey, Fine Art, is Chair of Visual Artists Ireland.

Well known graduates include Arthur Mathews, co-writer of Channel Four's 'Fr Ted'; Aoife Wasser, Art Director with the New York publisher Visionaire; Darrell Kavanagh, MD of Imagenow; Jamie Helly, MD of Dynamo; Martin Gaffney, MD of Designworks; Neville Knott, designer and TV personality; Nick Cloake, MD of Baseline and Chair of Design Business Ireland.

DIT is a lead partner in GradCAM, the national graduate school for the creative arts and media and the School is an active participant in the MPhil, PhD and Research activities of the School whose other partners are University College Dublin; University of Ulster; National College of Art & Design; Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. Recognising the importance of global influences the School has signed partnership agreements with Shanghai Institute of Visual Art and Columbia College Chicago.