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Qualification

Graduate Diploma

Level 7 (140 Credits)

Start Dates
Course Fees (Year 1. See fees information.)
Domestic $10,500.00 NZD
International $33,500.00 NZD
Admission Requirements

Applicants must hold a Bachelor's Degree or be able to evidence equivalent work experience.

Portfolio Requirements

Creative Advertising Task Sheet

Study Options

Study on campus

What is Creative Advertising?

A career in ideas

This programme isn’t about ads that harrass, interrupt, and stalk you. It's about ideas. Ideas that surprise, delight, provoke. Ideas that create their own shareability and their own PR.

Ideas that change culture, change behaviour and help change the world. Sometimes that can mean creating ads. But only if they’re ads that people notice, love, and talk about. Sometimes that can mean applying your creativity to tech to create new products or services that can help to solve urgent social and environmental problems.

So, if you have a creative itch, if you want to help solve problems, if you want a career in ideas, if you want it yesterday. You should talk to us. ASAP.

Creative Advertising

What makes this programme different?

The best way to learn to thrive in a creative department is to be in one. So that’s what we do. We immerse you in a full time creative department. Our campus and online space looks and behaves like a creative department: Your tutors are creative directors. You do all your work in a creative team of copywriter and art director.

The programme is organised around global and national industry competitions. All work is marked or judged by industry. Each person has an industry mentor for the final 10 weeks. Under their coaching, you and your partner will create a final end of year show portfolio.

No lectures, no essays. Just you doing, with industry and tutors guiding you from the side.

It works, year after year. Seen as recently as 2021, when, despite lockdowns, 90% of our teams were picked up by agencies within one week of their end of year show.

McTransfer

Why are we the most awarded advertising programme in NZ & Australia?

Award-winning creative students become award-winning industry creatives. Our alumni stretches back over 20-years. They work here, they work around the globe and they win awards. Agencies use awards to benchmark themselves globally. We use them in the same way, because we want you to be the best globally.

Just last year our alumni won huge global awards for ideas that linked air pollution to UK property prices in a way that led to a changes in the law; another team create HIV+ sperm banks to help change people’s perception of living with HIV; and another in Germany worked with scientists and WWF to name a new deep sea species after the plastic found in its gut. It created headlines around the world.

Who should apply?

You’re done with studying or you’re knee-deep in the workforce. You’re a little bit off beat. You haven’t quite found your fit, your whānau, your people.

You’re extroverted. You’re introverted. You’re super into tech, or not at all. But you have a creative itch and you need to scratch it. You like words. You like visuals.

You’re curious about people, culture, media. You like brands, or you’re super wary of them. You’re entrepreneurial laced with a socially progressive edge.

You’re want to solve problems urgent ones. You’re probably somewhere between your early 20s and late 30s. We’ll know you when we see you. Book a call.

Why study Creative Advertising at Media Design School?

What you'll cover in this course

The Graduate Diploma kicks off with an introduction to the foundation elements of visual communication, copywriting, and techniques for generating ideas.

You'll work in creative partnerships to turn those ideas into realised concepts, benchmarking your work in national and international competitions, and working to live briefs, as we prepare you to work effectively and creatively to deadlines as you would in an agency. Along the way, you'll work with proven creatives, gaining insights from experts in the industry.

The course culminates in our annual industry showcase, where creative directors, senior creatives and past graduates are personally invited to view your portfolio. We view the show as your first stepping stone into setting up work experience, with most students securing their own interviews and internships on the night.  

Fine is a 4 letter Word
Component Name Credits Toggle
Art Direction
15
Copywriting
15
Creative Thinking and Idea Generation
20
Creative Development for Static Mediums
20
Creative Development in Dynamic Mediums
35
Integrated Creative Development
35

Qualification Requirements

Qualifications you'll need for this course

Age: Minimum 18 years

Domestic and international Prerequisites: Applicants must hold a Bachelor's Degree or be able to evidence equivalent work experience.

This programme needs people with a variety of different backgrounds and experiences, so your degree or work experience could be in any sort of visual or written communication: art, design, film, animation, gaming, social sciences or the broader humanities, as well as law, marketing or business in general.

In fact, we’re very open to discussing the relevance of your degree or background, because what we’re looking for above all else are the tenacious, the motivated, the insatiably curious and any individual with a definite impulse towards a more creative pathway.

Entry Requirements:

If you are applying for the GDCA after completing a Bachelor's Degree you will need to provide:

  • Your completed Creative Advertising Task Sheet.
  • Your transcripts from your Bachelors qualification

If you are applying for the GDCA after having a combo of six years in tertiary or relevant work experience, you will need to provide:

  • Your completed Creative Advertising Task Sheet
  • Your CV/Resume
  • Two reference letters from previous employer/s
  • You may also want to provide your transcripts from any prior tertiary qualifications if you completed these in the past 10 years

 If you want to know if your work experience is relevant please feel free to give us a call.

Please note, quotas may apply to some programmes. Where demand exceeds the number of available places, applicants who meet entry requirements will be admitted on a first-come-first-served basis.

 

Language Requirements

If English is not your first language, you'll need to prove you have sufficient English language skills in order to complete this course. We'll be looking for Academic IELTS overall score of 6.0 (minimum) with no band less than 5.5, or equivalent test result.

We accept a range of internationally recognised English Language proficiency test. Find out more on the NZQA website or download the NZQA list HERE.

Portfolio Requirements

Please complete our Creative Advertising Task Sheet.

BYOD Requirements

BYOD Requirements

Before you begin your study with us, you will need to have a suitable device that has the functionality to run the programmes required for your course.

Follow this link to find course-specific requirements and recommendations, along with links to more information about hardware specifications. We have prepared these recommendations to help our students equip for flexible, blended learning.

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