Textile Design BA (Hons)

This unit provides you with a dynamic exploration of the fundamentals of textile design, such as concept, drawing, materials, colour, and pattern and composition, through an exciting range of projects and workshops. You’ll develop your creative design ideas while gathering visual information to explore concepts through experimental and observational drawing, photography, and related research to inspire your work. Colour-related workshops include colour theory, the development of colour palettes, surface and dye processes, and screen printing. Ideas will be translated during material workshops in fabric manipulation and surface embellishment. Through lectures and seminars, you’ll examine contemporary designers from a range of perspectives, exploring the relationship between fashion, textiles, interiors, sustainability and wider visual culture.

40 credits

This unit provides you with deeper engagement with textiles processes including knit, weave, print and embellishment, alongside further development of your personal visual and conceptual interests. Using an iterative approach, you’ll explore pattern and composition building, material and form, and customers / contexts. You will investigate diverse roles in the global textile industry and consider how your skills can be developed and applied to a range of opportunities. The practical content is underpinned by theoretical content to contextualise current practice within a historical framework. You will consider origins and influences and how traditions develop and evolve in response to social, sustainable and political contexts.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

This unit will enable you to expand your specialist textiles knowledge and skills in both traditional techniques and innovative practices, building your portfolio for industry engagement. The year is characterised by communication, collaboration and professional practice, by working on industry-facing design briefs, with work completed for an external client, partner, competition or exhibition. You’ll be encouraged to take creative risks, work with a range of processes, and take part in advanced workshops in applications of digital tools for design, manufacture, and communication. You’ll research and explore relevant contemporary global concepts and strategies to underpin your understanding of contemporary issues in the creative industries. You’ll develop an understanding of the need to conduct market research and develop a greater awareness of using trend information as part of your design process, designing for products and collections across materials and applications.

80 credits

This unit will introduce you to the different ways collaborative working can help you focus and enhance your creative strengths, working with fellow students and our creative communities. This unit will build upon your communication skills, focusing on problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, listening, negotiation, and reflection, as you work towards a common set of project goals, enhancing your employability, presentation, and communication skills. This unit encourages you to explore your practice as a responsible textile designer. You’ll be thinking about creating new work, materials, products or services that factor in environmental, social, economic and cultural costs. Through our career and employability sessions, you’ll begin to define your place as a designer in a global context and potential directions for your work, helping inform your future career aspirations. You will identify and explore theoretical research interests to shape your progression into the final year of study.

40 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.

This is the first and shorter of the two units that make up your final year of study. Your final year allows you to refine your existing creative practice, develop your skills, and reflect upon your experience, with opportunities to engage with live projects, competitions, and professional bodies, to broaden your portfolio and strategically enhance career directions. The unit encourages innovation through an experimental, process-driven approach to technical and material development, using advanced production techniques in knit, weave, print, stitch, both traditional and digital. You’ll develop an individual research project that advances your knowledge of contextual issues, cultural theories and practices. Group and individual tutorials will provide stimulating and supportive sessions to help you develop your research ideas and those of others.

40 credits

This unit will allow you to deliver a final major design project, embracing the entire design process, and demonstrating your approach to, and engagement with, contemporary textile design practices and industry partners. Emphasis is placed on students’ abilities to evaluate, make informed choices for selecting methods and processes, and create innovative outcomes. Your work will become increasingly self-directed in relation to personal ambitions, and you will consolidate your knowledge and understanding to develop an independent creative voice preparing you for entry into professional practice or engagement in further research. We celebrate the end of the year with our Textile Design Industry Awards event, with past judges from John Lewis, Art Angels Publishing, and Dulux. You’ll have the opportunity to display your final year project as part of our degree show, Grad Fest, which allows you to showcase your work to our network of industry professionals and prospective employers.

80 credits

The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.

An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus.  The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.

Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.