Welcome to Textile Design at Norwich

Welcome Week starts on Monday 15 September, and this is when we will meet you on campus and introduce you to our buildings and facilities. The course team are keen to meet you and there will be opportunities to start getting to know each other and the other students on your course straight away. You will be invited to a session to collect your ID card and you will also have the opportunity to watch some videos about the services and facilities the University offers. Above all, this week is about having fun and making connections so we have a full and exciting timetable of social events and activities you can sign up to in conjunction with our fantastic Students’ Union team.

We’ve put together some suggestions of things you might like to read, watch, and do before you arrive, and provided suggestions about equipment and materials you are likely to need, so please read through this page carefully.

Course specific information

On day 1 you will meet Kate Farley, the Course Leader, as well as Caroline George who is your Year Lead for BA1. You will also meet Les Bicknell and Pip Prinsloo from the academic team, and our lovely technicians who will be working with you during the next year, Neil, Yasmine and David.

In the first week as well as having fun together, we will introduce you to the year’s timetable and help you understand the shape of your weeks throughout the year. We hope you will enjoy being on campus in our studios and workshops being creative alongside your peers!

Day 1 & 2 will include tours and introductions as well as practical workshops so you may want to bring a notebook and pen to record the information you need. We will provide all the material / tools required for the activities in the first week. There will also be a trip to the cinema on Tuesday afternoon!

Throughout the year there is a general pattern that fits most term-time weeks to help you plan your life: Mondays and Tuesdays are busy days with studio workshops, tutorials and technical workshop sessions. Wednesday morning sessions will be delivered online including industry guest lectures so you can attend from wherever is convenient to you. We don’t teach on Wednesday afternoons so you can join in with the Student Union activities or use your time for other commitments. As a first-year student you will have an independent study day on Thursdays, so you can carry on with project work, visit the library, galleries or book into workshops and catch up on other things. You don’t have to be on campus on independent study days. Fridays will be a mix of lectures, workshops, technical and study sessions, as well as studio time throughout the year. We look forward to sharing the project details with you and will help plan your time!

Our Textiles community is important to us all and we hope you will also enjoy contributing and belonging here. We understand this might be daunting at first, but we will do our best to help you settle in and signpost you to any other support you may need.

We enjoy sharing our excitement for all things textiles and will enjoy getting to know what makes you excited about it too! Social activities and shared making / exhibiting can be helpful to build social networks and support systems. There are opportunities both formally and informally to get to know students.

Things to watch, read and do

Watch

Learn about the importance of sketchbooks as objects and places to explore ideas

Read

Patternity

Explore the PATTERNITY website, and have a go at this:

COLOUR Journal

Sarah Craig is a Sydneysider exploring her love of colour in The Big Apple. The Colour Journal is a documentation of her research and experimentation.

Listen

Selvedge Podcast

Material Matters

Material Matters is a podcast in which the host Grant Gibson talks to designers, makers, artists, architects and manufacturers about their relationship to a particular material or technique with which they’re intrinsically linked.

Haptic and Hue

Suggested equipment & materials

In preparation for starting the course it will help you to gather some of the following equipment. You will not need all this equipment immediately but try to build it up during the summer break and through the first term. Textiles students are usually excellent gatherers, so you may have lot of this already!

There will be drawing workshops during the first few weeks and although we will be providing some materials, we will ask you to bring some of the materials you are familiar with too. You will be able to purchase many of the items listed below from the University Shop when you start.

• General purpose scissors
• Fabric scissors — these need to be looked after and only used for fabric!
• Glue stick
• Pot for water — a washed-out tin or jar would do
• Pencil sharpener
• Craft knife
• Sketch book preferably A3 in size (we will teach you how to make your own too!)
• A selection of paint brushes of various sizes
• General drawing equipment: a range of pens (colours and black), chalks, graphite pencils HB-6B, water-based inks etc.
• Colour paper and a variety of different types of papers including tissue paper and tracing paper. Start to collect interesting paper, textures and colours you come across (ideally not sugar paper as it fades badly).
• A variety of threads and materials (textile and non-textile). We can advise you on this once you have enrolled.
• Any other interesting found materials or objects — make sure they are clean!

We would advise you to wait until you are at the University before buying too much equipment. If in doubt, ask!

We also have general guidance and recommendations about IT requirements.