MA Design Innovation

Why study this subject?

The creative world is full of exciting and rewarding opportunities. This course enables you to challenge or extend your professional practice to acknowledge and address core themes that the fashion and textile industry faces, making you a key member to any team for employers.

What facilities can I use?

We’ve spent a lot of love and care making the Fashion and Textile Studios the perfect creative space and one of the best-equipped workshops in the country. We are extremely proud to be able to offer industry-standard studios, technical machines and high-quality equipment to our fashion and textile-based courses.

You will master materials, both through traditional methods and using digital software. This includes an in-house fabric and yarn store, screen printing facilities, a dye laboratory and sewing and garment production facilities.

In our professional-working studio you’ll have you own workspace which you’ll be able to turn into your own personal area, where you can bring your designs to life and surround yourself with inspiration.

We also have specialist technicians and demonstrators on site to support and share their knowledge with you, when and if you need it.

As well as this you may also have the chance to access to our photography, film and tv and drama studios where you’ll be able to work collaboratively with photography, performance and hair and make-up students to build your portfolio, and network like you would in the industry.

What will I study?

This design innovation ma degree aims to advance your knowledge in design industry practices. On this course we put a clear emphasis on producing professionals who can challenge current processes and drive mechanisms for positive change in the fashion and textile sector.  

During your time with us you’ll become an independent thinker and a creative problem solver who can identify, lead, and extend innovation in your sector.

The modules within this course are aimed at providing professional designers and graduates across the fashion, textile, and fashion communication sector the opportunity to enhance your research knowledge and practice in parallel.

Whilst working to your individual strengths, interests, and future aspirations, you will initially complete rigorous investigation and experimentation across 3 key areas: Digital Futures, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability.

This course offers you the opportunity to identify and develop new products, processes, or ways of working to become a confident, creative, and motivated innovator of design. You’ll gain a broader awareness of global challenges from entrepreneurial, ethical, sustainable, or economic perspectives, to extend your intellectual, technical, and professional skills, with input from industry professionals.

Your individual topic of research will extend one of the themes into your practical capstone project which aligns to your final research dissertation and your career aspirations.

How will I be taught and assessed?

This MA Design Innovation degree encompasses a wide variety of teaching and learning methods. You’ll be expected to complete a series of modules and projects during your time spent studying with us. Projects are designed to present new challenges to you as you progress through the course.

The other assessment methods you will experience are:

• hybrid learning of practical and academic elements
• reflective and critically evaluative reports, sketchbooks, or artefacts
• research portfolio
• lecturers and seminars
• presentations
• self-evaluation
• dissertation

Self and peer feedback during regular group and individual discussions is an essential element in the growth of ideas and practical development. Students will be expected, during critiques and other discussions, to display a critical and reflective approach to their own work.