Textile Design BA (Hons) at De Montfort University

With a flexible curriculum to accommodate your creative ambitions, this course will prepare you to take a critical position to forge a successful career in the globalised creative world. The key business skills that you will gain - project management, marketing, website design, branding and business planning – make this course the ideal platform for creative entrepreneurs to launch their own design businesses and consultancies, or for those who hope to take up senior roles in design strategy or brand management. The course is designed for students with a good working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite applications, such as Photoshop, Acrobat and InDesign, and will develop these technical skills to an advanced level.

You will select a specialist area of study from diverse options, ranging from retail, museum and exhibition, and product design, to interior, footwear, visual communication, and design innovation. Learn to devise creative solutions to complex issues surrounding sustainability and explore the role of design and innovation as a driver for change. 

The opportunity to work on live projects will enhance your professional portfolio, and you will complete an individual major project (either creative practice based or research focused) which runs throughout the course, drawing on the professional expertise and specialist knowledge of our academics.  

Throughout the course we will empower you to experiment boldly and support you to take risks. You will be encouraged challenge conventions and develop innovative approaches to tackling contemporary design challenges, with the cutting-edge facilities for you to refine your talents and realise your creative visions. 

The MA in Children’s Book Illustration (with optional Professional Placement) is perfect for practicing professional illustrators, artists and designers wishing to develop new ideas and techniques aimed at the children’s market. This taught, studio course is also suitable for recent design graduates who wish to focus and refine their ideas at a more advanced level.

Although primarily a visual course for artists and illustrators, authorial control over content is also hugely important in the children's book field, so the ability to write creatively and to fuse written and visual content is an important component in the practice of children’s book illustration.

The emphasis of the course is on the practice of illustration for children’s picture books and story books. At postgraduate level you will be encouraged to pursue an original line of enquiry within your chosen area of children’s book illustration and design.

The design arena is filled with opportunity. Our Design course, with optional professional placement, provides the framework and direction for a deep dive into a personal area of interest, so you grow professionally and personally. It’s for graduates, practising artists or designers, in visual communication and applied arts.

By the end of the program, you’ll have a cohesive body of work, produced to a professional standard that clearly articulates a sound intellectual rationale and a broad critical viewpoint.  

You’ll pursue a unique personal line of inquiry in your chosen subject area and generate a portfolio of work tracking your development towards the goals agreed by you with academic staff.

The course is taught by tutors who are professional design practitioners and who play a prominent role in the University's research activities.

An optional placement year, gives you the chance to spend a minimum of 24 weeks putting theory into practice, and discovering how to make a living from doing what you love.