Our BA (Hons) Textile Design degree courses nurture fresh thinking and industry-ready creatives through a dynamic and carefully structured four year programme.

About foundation courses

The foundation course is an exciting step towards your chosen degree. It provides an opportunity to develop skills to equip you on your professional journey into the creative industries.

The programme encompasses elements of fashion design, fashion business and textile design degree routes. It provides a platform for you to share with and learn from others, while developing visual communication skills and processes. It will help you in building confidence and independence ready for the next stage of your degree.

We aim to excite, engage and challenge you, pushing you to develop into a capable student with a great fashion and textiles aesthetic as well as an enthusiasm to learn. This four-year programme has been specifically designed to allow you to undertake additional level three study, to ensure you are successful on your chosen degree programme.

After successful completion of your foundation year, you will have the flexibility to switch (should you wish to change direction) onto a number of related undergraduate degree programmes within the School of Fashion and Textiles.

Embroidery

Our Embroidery option appeals to students who love to build onto and into surfaces, and enjoy working with diverse materials and threads. Drawing on the rich heritage of the subject, the focus during the course is on exploring the new possibilities with the materials and technologies that exist today. Alongside hand skills, including tambour beading and gold work, you become confident with using specialist digital embroidery software and equipment. Students often work onto surfaces they have printed, creating designs with rich surface qualities and dramatic compositions. Ideally suited to working within the luxury end of the market, there are a wide range of applications for embroidery including performance, illustration and visual merchandising.

Studying with us will provide you with the skills, insights and experiences required to succeed in a broad scope of professional textile related roles. Embroidery students secure placements with fashion and interior companies, design studios, designer makers, arts organisations, costume departments, stylists and trend agencies.

By the end of your degree you will have a clear vision of where you fit in the industry and a tailored professional portfolio to take with you. Our BA (Hons) Textile Design: Embroidery graduates are employed as Couture Embroidery Designers, Studio Designers, Designer Makers, Artists and Facilitators and Trend Forecasters. They also take up other roles where their material sensitivity, creativity and problem-solving is valued.

Our brand new hub for the arts in the thriving Eastside of the city has been purpose-built to stimulate creative minds within an open-access, contemporary studio environment. You will become a part of our lively and close-knit student community and be guided by an experienced and passionate team of staff who value the importance of getting to know you as an individual.

• 96% of our students were employed or in further study (DLHE 2017).
• Our experienced and award-winning lecturers have extensive and broad insights to share with you, gained from key roles in industry or their experience working as practitioners.
• Live briefs expose you to leaders in the design field and help you develop important collaborative skills.
• Module timescales are aligned with industry pace, to ensure our students are fully prepared to step into the world of work.
• We support you in entering key national competitions such as Texselect, the Bradford Textile Competition, Hand and Lock and iDott to get your CV looking sharp from the get-go.
• We invite esteemed and influential guest speakers to come along and inspire you, from broad areas of the industry from Couture Embroidery Design to Trend Forecasting!
• Our cutting-edge facilities comprise of industry-standard technology and equipment to ensure you are developing professionally relevant skills and awareness.
• We know the importance of peer relationships and design fun, collaborative group learning opportunities to help you learn with and from each other.
• It’s easy to feel at home within our lively creative community. Joining clubs and societies and getting involved with other rewarding volunteer, mentoring and leadership roles will give you a taste of true university living, and you’ll make ‘friends for life’ along the way!
• Interested in travel? We run study trips that you can get involved with, and offer overseas university exchange opportunities through the Erasmus programme which could see you completing some of your degree overseas in places like Barcelona or Milan.
• Exhibit your work in your final year at our degree show, the ‘Inspired Festival’, with the opportunity to also be selected for New Designers, London.

Mature Applicants

Applications from mature students (21+) with alternative qualifications and/or considerable work experience will be considered on their merits.

Course structure

Year 1

The first year is all about experimentation! You will engage with different approaches to drawing and idea generation, learn in depth about colour, composition and materials in relation to textile design, and be challenged with working to your first client brief. You will be introduced to our workshops to learn and sample in the areas of woven, knitted, embroidered and printed textiles, identifying the technical language (or languages) that best suit your skills and interests.

A contextual lecture/ seminar programme builds knowledge of historical textiles which provides the vital reference points needed within contemporary design as well as critical thinking skills.

Year 2

In your second year, you will extend your technical skills while beginning to understand the scope of career opportunities open to you. You will start the year by learning about key industry sectors and developing a personal CV and creative promotional material to help you establish your areas of interest. 

You will then be introduced to and choose practical design challenges from across five key employment sectors which have been designed to help you consider your place within the industry: 

• Bespoke Fashion Textiles
• Contemporary Culture and Craft
• Retail and Promotion
• Styling and Trend Forecasting
• Surface Pattern and Technologies

You will study market and client awareness, trends in both fashion and interior design sectors, commercial considerations with industry-facing projects as well as business principles, ethics and sustainability issues.

You can then choose to end the year by undertaking a professional Work Placement or Collaborative Practice experience, building your knowledge in the workplace or working alongside other creative students from across the Faculty.

Year 3

In Year 3 you will continue your design journey in relation to your chosen career pathway and through your choice of textile language, but with a much more independent and self-directed focus.

You will begin by writing your dissertation around a subject of interest. This will often kickstart themes and concepts that can form the basis of practical work to follow. 

The final project is split into two modules, to help structure the experience. You will firstly engage in broad and personal contextual research to inform and inspire you in creating a professional portfolio of extended design work and resolve a creative brief that is aligned with your creative ambitions.

Our unique Next Step module then equips you with all you need to make the leap into employment, which could be anything from putting together job applications, to writing a business plan or applying for an exhibition…

The learning environment

Our teaching encompasses a wide range of learning and teaching methods, and immersive, interactive studio/workshop experiences are supported by e-learning to provide a holistic experience. Equipment includes a suite of digital printers, jacquard looms, computerised AVL studio looms, digital embroidery machines, V-bed Dubied knitting machines and laser cutting equipment, in addition to traditional facilities which comprise of a dye lab, screen-printing tables, transfer presses, flocking facilities, knitting machines, looms and rug tufting guns.

Studios, workshops, computer suites and library facilities operate late night access to suit night owls as well as early birds!  We have professional support teams on hand to help you every step of the way – organising Disability Support, wellbeing, housing or careers.

Supportive tuition in both one-to-one and combined groups scenarios throughout the course fosters the interchange of ideas and promotes critical thinking. The diverse experience of the academic staff reflects the course ethos – all are practising designers/visual artists and many have worked internationally.

The course actively fosters links with organisations and industry, providing a continuously updated contemporary educational experience.

Studio activities

Practical drawing sessions help to get design projects underway in a friendly and supportive environment, building your skills and confidence by sharing and learning as part of a peer group.

We design stimulating workshops and activities to help to develop problem-solving abilities and interpersonal skills as well as subject specific knowledge and help to prepare you for the real world by setting industry-facing briefs and running design projects as if in a commercial studio. With role-play sessions, reviews and critiques, you have opportunities to test your professional networking skills, ready to take to your perfect job.

Working alongside friends to learn and understand the subject of textiles in relation to the wider industry, you will participate in seminars to discuss contemporary design issues, such as ethical fashion, global trends and international manufacturing, while working out what makes you tick.

Foundation student project

Students on the Fashion and Textiles Foundation took part in The Signature Project where they used personal creative strategies to show off a range of skills and showcase their personal design style in preparation for the next step of their chosen degree.

Read more

Birmingham City University is a vibrant and multicultural university in the heart of a modern and diverse city. We welcome many international students every year – there are currently students from more than 80 countries among our student community.

The University is conveniently placed, with Birmingham International Airport nearby and first-rate transport connections to London and the rest of the UK.

Our international pages contain a wealth of information for international students who are considering applying to study here, including:

• Explore some of the good reasons why you should study here.
• Find out how to improve your language skills before starting your studies.
• Find all the information relevant to applicants from your country.
• Learn where to find financial support for your studies.

Our international students

Our course is perfectly suited to students from around the world as we approach textiles from an international viewpoint. Students share experiences and learn from each other, and the teaching focuses, where possible, on the international design industry, from trends to manufacturing contexts, preparing graduates for jobs in the global market. Graduates from the course have worked overseas including USA, Saudi Arabia, France, Laos, Sweden and Finland.