Textiles: Innovation and Design BA (Hons)

What you'll study

Textiles: Innovation and Design provides a stimulating creative environment in which you can develop practical, critical and conceptual skills necessary for high-level contemporary Textiles practice.

We aim to ensure that all students have broad first-hand experience of processes involved in the planning and production of contemporary Textile outcomes, whilst developing specialised knowledge aligning with current contextual requirements - Interiors, Fashion, Textiles Art, Research and the developing area of Digital Production. We encourage the development of significant skills in the practice of Design, Art and Craft informed by an awareness of historical and contemporary practice.

The information below reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. Updates may be made on an annual basis and revised details will be published through Programme Specifications ahead of each academic year. Please see Terms and Conditions of Study for more information.

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Final year

Year 1

Areas studied include drawing, introduction to modern and contemporary art and design, visual research, design development, and textiles process and exploration.

Drawing: Discourses and Debates Core

Drawing: Discourses and Debates

Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art and Design Core

Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art and Design

Visual Research for Textiles Core

Visual Research for Textiles

Design Development for Textiles Core

Design Development for Textiles

Textiles Process and Exploration Core

Textiles Process and Exploration

Year 2

Areas studied include materials, processes and conceptual application, sampling and textile manufacture, and professional and business practice. You will be given the opportunity to select one optional module from a diverse School-wide list.

Professional and Business Practice Core

Professional and Business Practice

Sampling and Textile Manufacture Core

Sampling and Textile Manufacture

Materials, Processes and Conceptual Application Core

Materials, Processes and Conceptual Application

Elephants and Engines: An Introduction to Creative Writing Optional

Elephants and Engines: An Introduction to Creative Writing

This module will introduce you to techniques for writing fiction and poetry. These include imagery, character and location - allowing you to write in whatever form or genre you wish, and on any subject matter. Practical workshops and examples from contemporary literature will help you to write, and to develop your writing strengths.

From Print to Digital: Publishing Revolutions Optional

From Print to Digital: Publishing Revolutions

This module provides multiple perspectives on publishing and the spread of ideas through print and the digital in society, and on key concepts and ideas from the publishing world. It traces significant changes that have taken place in the book trade since the invention of printing to the digital revolution and to explore the challenges and opportunities arising from these changes.

Philosophy, Literature and the Arts Optional

Philosophy, Literature and the Arts

On this module you will read and discuss some of the key ideas in philosophy that are central to literary study and theory, and to the discussion of art and its role in our lives and societies. We will be examining these alongside a selection of literary texts and visual art (sculpture, painting and photography) which pose, incorporate or illustrate philosophical ideas and questions.

African American Culture Optional

African American Culture

On this module you will explore the complex formal and political questions raised by African American cultural expression produced between 1845 and the present. We will study a wide range of forms and media - literary, cinematic and musical - situating these in their shifting historical contexts, from the nineteenth-century American South to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.

Material Culture Optional

Material Culture

Optional module taught by Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies, focusing on the concept of physical and virtual objects. The ideas of consumption and possession are explored, including the notion of the body as a material thing and the nature of gift and exchange.

Creative Dissent: Protest, Activism and Art Optional

Creative Dissent: Protest, Activism and Art

This module highlights the social production of art.

Fashion Theory Optional

Fashion Theory

This module will introduce and critically examine some of the main theories of fashion. It will identify and survey modernist and post-modernist theories of the nature of fashion as well as of the production, meaning and consumption of fashion.

19th Century Bodies Optional

19th Century Bodies

Word and Image: Verbo-visual Exchange in Art and Literature Optional

Word and Image: Verbo-visual Exchange in Art and Literature

This module examines innovative exchanges between word and image in visual art and literature across a range of media. It develops analytical skills through the close visual and textual analysis of works drawn from a wide variety of historical periods and genre.

Non-verbal Communication: Body Adornment and New Technologies Optional

Non-verbal Communication: Body Adornment and New Technologies

This module aims for students to develop an appreciation of body objects in life, art, design and drama, as well as gaining understanding and knowledge of the communicative roles of wearable artefacts and the relationships they can have with the human body.

Arts Management Optional

Arts Management

This module covers a range of issues related to arts management including: the economic and political landscape for the arts and creative industries, careers in arts management, funding for the arts, establishing and running an arts-based organisation, arts programming, curating, audience and customer development, finance and fundraising, marketing, time management and project management.

Introduction to Multimodality Optional

Introduction to Multimodality

How do we communicate through images and what is the relationship between visual and verbal text strategies? The aim of the module is to introduce students to the study of texts that are created not just by using verbal language.

Costume Design Optional

Costume Design

This module aims for the student to gain both theoretical knowledge of the function and historical development of theatre costume, and practical understanding of the creative process of design and making.

Final year

Modules studied include Innovation, Exploration and Invention, Textiles Research Report, and a Textiles Studio Practice Final Project.

Textiles Research Report Core

Textiles Research Report

Textiles: Innovation, Exploration and Invention Core

Textiles: Innovation, Exploration and Invention

Final Project Textiles Studio Practice Core

Final Project Textiles Studio Practice

Programme specification

Module specification