*Subject to Validation Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. We are the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience. The university was recently voted 2nd in the UK for Facilities in the annual Whatuni Student Choice Awards, 3rd in the UK for Student Support, and 4th in the UK for Lecturers & Teaching Quality. Arts University Plymouth was crowned the 2024 Winner in South West England for the categories of University of the Year, Facilities, Student Support, and Learning & Teaching Quality. Why choose MA Design (Fashion) at Arts University Plymouth? We place you at the crossroad of material traditions and futures. Design is an expanding area of practice that encompasses both industry standards and an exciting exploration of new design thinking seeking to build more sustainable businesses and ethical creative practices. Our MA Design (Fashion) places you at the forefront of the creative and societal forces that are challenging design norms in order to reimagine production and consumption for a changing world through new modes of practice. A pro-active, Interdisciplinary community. New ideas and design practices do not develop in isolation. You come to university to be challenged, supported and to take risks in a context that will inspire you to innovate and understand design as an active process of inquiry into market demands, new technologies, transforming supply chains and challenges to our environment. The course encourages conceptual exploration and hands-on iteration through multiple disciplines and cultures of making. Accelerated personal development through guided, practice-led research. We believe design is a research-led enquiry into human relationships with each other and our planetary ecosystem. This enquiry is pursued through an iterative, material-led examination of the links between human need, human behaviour and human community, leading to new insights and solutions. Your personal learning is accelerated through common units navigated via your individual discipline and professional objectives. World-class workshops and facilities: During your time on the course, you will have access to one of the most diverse and spacious ecosystems of workshops, studios and labs known in a contemporary art and design school. Our FabLab is the first of its kind in the UK and gives you access to state-of-the-art resources for developing a 21st century skillset that will prepare you for leading new design methods and practices, making you adept at navigating design’s complex material and digital interface. Sustainable ethos and specialist knowledge: Built into our Postgraduate programme is an emphasis on the sustainable, non-extractive and regenerative approaches to working with materials, which not only provides a meaningful link between the past and the future of design, but puts you at the forefront of contemporary design thinking aimed at developing new, more sustainable industries. We provide an opportunity to develop specialist practices that give you the tools and knowledge to contribute to a growing design sector focused on building a circular economy.
The comprehensive Masters structure, which is shared across our specialist subjects, enables our postgraduate students to focus on creative strategies and processes through three sequential units which support you in investigating, testing and developing your ideas. The core tuition focuses on training, research methodology, critical thinking, design, practice-led research methods and professional and conceptual frameworks. All of our programmes have access to outstanding workshop facilities in the university. A unique component of our postgraduate curriculum is a programme of Research Intensives which invites all MA students into small periods of deep learning in areas of creative expertise led by the university’s research-active staff and external specialists. These Research Intensives enrich subject-specific study with adjacent practices, cultural theories, and creative methodologies that will challenge historical assumptions of your subject and inspire innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches, giving you the opportunity to lead your discipline with original insights. You will be supported in your MA study by a Subject Tutor who is a specialist in your chosen discipline, to provide a consistent touchstone for the critical development and formal progression of your creative or theoretical work. In addition to your Subject Tutor, you will have ongoing tutorials, critiques, and discipline-specific seminars taught by other members of the postgraduate faculty who lead the curriculum units. By combining learning units with specialist assignments and personal project proposals, you will be able to achieve depth and specialisation within your subject area, while at the same time develop a critical methodology through techniques that can be applied across the commercial, social and public sectors. All students are asked to submit an initial statement on application to the course. This sets out your ideas for the MA programme you have selected. Creative practice is about change and development, and this statement will form the starting point for a dialogue about your work and your study journey.
The final module of the programme may be submitted as a dissertation or as practice, depending on which pathway best suits your concerns as a creative practitioner.
MA applicants are normally expected to have an undergraduate degree at 2:2 or above. However, the strength of your creative practice and other forms of experience will be taken into account at the interview stage and we encourage you to start a conversation with us.
English language requirements
Test | Grade | Additional details |
Trinity ISE | Merit | Integrated Skills in English II (Level B2), minimum grade required: Reading: Merit, Listening: Merit Certificate valid for two years |
IELTS (Academic) | 6 | IELTS (Level B2), minimum grade required: IELTS overall score of 6.5, minimum of score Listening: 6.0, Speaking: 6.0, Reading: 6.0, Writing: 6.0 Certificate valid for two years |
PTE Academic | 59 | PTE Academic (Level B2), minimum grade required: Listening: 59, Reading: 59, Writing: 59, Speaking: 59 Certificate valid for two years |
Click here to find out the most up-to-date information on our English Language requirements
Fees and funding
No fee information has been provided for this course
Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .