The Royal College of Art is offering two new courses focused on critical skills for a changing world

The Royal College of Art, the longstanding arts institution founded in 1837, knows the power of adaptation. Today, for many creatives, artists and designers, the complexities of the job market have brought their future career prospects into question, and the demand for specialised expertise is on the rise. The RCA is offering a gateway to new practices, helping creatives level up with two new courses, Introduction to Animation: Contexts and Process and Design Without: A Neville Brody Masterclass.

The RCA has more than 30,000 alumni all over the world and around 2,500 students spread across four schools: architecture, arts & humanities, communication and design, as well as in RCA’s research centres. To best serve its students, the RCA is confronting the changes emerging from the rise of new technologies head on, and interrogating how these changes will come to shape our lives. The current creative landscape raises the question: what skills are required for the future workplace?

Design Without: A Neville Brody Masterclass is an experimental course geared towards senior creatives and practitioners, presenting challenges aimed to redirect predictable creative outputs towards innovation and play. The course is led by celebrated designer and typographer Professor Neville Brody, known for his iconic work with magazines like The Face and Arena, as well as musicians such as electronic band Depeche Mode.

“Experienced practitioners need the chance to challenge creative assumptions. In the age of AI, it’s becoming more difficult to take meaningful risks, and break free from habitual ways of working,” says Neville. “It isn’t about producing an instantly perfect outcome, it’s about embracing the process of response itself as a gateway to new learning, change, and creative revitalisation.”

Introduction to Animation: Contexts and Process is another new course at the RCA, an area the institution has been a leader in for the past 40 years. The course celebrates the RCA’s legacy by inviting participants, be it beginners or career switchers, to discover the practice of animation and acquire new skills. It’s led by Bafta-nominated filmmaker Bunny Schendler and developed by Bafta-nominated and head of animation MA Samantha Moore. Through hands-on, studio-based practice, students have the opportunity to broaden knowledge using methodologies of the MA Animation programme at the RCA.

Alongside Introduction to Animation: Contexts and Process and Design Without: A Neville Brody Masterclass are the RCA’s long-running courses, like Typography, a course led by designer, writer, and publisher Adrian Shaughnessy, co-founder of design studio Intro and former RCA tutor, in partnership with designer and president of the International Society of Typographic Designers, Astrid Stavro.

The RCA provides the space to play with foundational and experimental practice, and the new courses aim to disrupt existing methodologies, broaden horizons, or perhaps help you embark on MA level studies. On studying at the RCA, CEO/ECD Mike Bennett says it’s “a fantastic, creative, steroid shot to anyone’s career. It reminded me of why I got into design in the first place.”