Communications & Arts
Undergraduate Communications & Arts brochure
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Communications & Arts
Communications and Arts at ECU offers a diverse range of programs in communications, media, design, arts and the humanities. We aim to maximise your employability by developing your hands-on skills, offering you professional placement experiences, and providing you with a solid theoretical background. Our course structures allow you to specialise in one area or gain expertise in multiple areas, providing you with the multi-skilling required to succeed in many of today’s arts and communications industries.
New Spectrum Project Space Launched at Mount Lawley Campus
The new Spectrum Project Space is a purpose‑built venue to exhibit the work of ECU staff and students.
With the support of ECU, students learn how to install and present their work to the public in a professional exhibition space. It is a unique concept and the exhibitions include works from our Photomedia, Contemporary Fashion & Textiles, Visual Arts and Graphic Design students.
Groundbreaking New Bachelor of Arts Degree
Our Bachelor of Arts course has been restructured into one of the most progressive and flexible degrees of its kind in Australia.
The course structure enables you to combine Arts subjects with a major from a range of other disciplines, providing you with a unique opportunity to design a cross‑disciplinary course according to your personal interests.
Graduate Employability
Our Communications, Creative Industries and Arts course structures are designed to promote multi‑skilling of students, which combined with our focus on community projects and industry placements, serves to increase employment prospects in an increasingly competitive market.
Our students have been highly successful, both nationally and internationally, in gaining recognition through awards, competitions and employment in rapidly growing creative industries.
ECU Student Wins The 2011 Bill Warnock Award
Our PhD in Communications student Damien Spiccia was the successful recipient of the Bill Warnock Award for Emerging Screen Writers for his script Beyond the Pale. Damien received a support package valued at $6,000.Beyond the Pale is an Australian fantasy in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth with a dose of John Hughes thrown in. The script is about a young woman who is mysteriously cursed to turn into a fox, and the local teenage witch who may the only one who can help her.
Born in Perth, Damien Spiccia graduated from our WA Screen Academy in 2005 and won a Screenwriting WASA the following year for his first musical short, A Trick of the Moonlight. In 2008 he was awarded Link funding for Deep End, a mix of live‑action and animation, and in 2010 he was awarded HyperLink funding for his second musical short, Light as a Feather. He has also directed episodes of locally‑produced children’s TV drama Castaway.
Regional winners in the Google Online Marketing Challenge
Competing as online marketing consultants, Georg Widschwendter, Michael Allbeury and Marjorie Fouquereau from our Communications, Design and Marketing courses, have cleaned up at the Google Online Marketing Challenge, standing out against more than 3,000 teams from 600 universities around the world.
"The most important thing I've taken from studying fashion at ECU is learning how to develop my creative concepts and turn them into a design."
"The lecturers are great. They help you to push your creative abilities and are always willing to give you one-on-one time and feedback. The skills and theory I learn in class I transfer directly to my own handmade accessory label that I sell in boutiques around Australia."
Liz Brown
Contemporary Fashion student
WA Screen Academy Triumphs at ATOM Awards
Screen Studies students from ECU's WA Screen Academy won the award for Best Tertiary Short Fiction 2011 at the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) awards. This is the second year that the Academy has taken out the top section.
Director of the Academy, John Rapsey, also received top honours, being named the 2011 ATOM Teacher of the Year.
"I've had to challenge my own perceptions and it's made me grow as a person.
"This course offered me freedom. I was able to choose units that reflected my interests, strengths and background, so it felt like my course.
"Being at a university where so many different schools of knowledge exist and so many activities take place, means that you can enjoy a richer uni life. And being involved with other projects has allowed me to gain more skills that are otherwise outside the scope of my degree, but make me a much more able person.
"Now I'm ready to take on almost anything!"
Marziya Mohammedali
Master of Innovative Technology student
13 ECU Photomedia students, graduates and staff exhibited in Fotofreo
The prestigious Fotofreo international photo festival included 13 ECU Photomedia students, graduates and staff.
Photomedia lecturer Max Pam puts the success down to the high quality teaching program at ECU, "To have so many people connected to Photomedia at ECU represented in the festival confirms the school's status as the best education provider in photography in Australia and certainly one of the best teaching institutions for this art form in the world."
See our students' work
See our Communication & Arts students' work in our creative showcase.