What You'll Study
Year One — You will study the multiple branding theories, concepts, processes and applications employed by the industry, including the historical contexts, fashion culture, visual language, and consumerism. You will start developing your own voice, ideas and creative practice through individual and group projects, including flash projects set by industry experts and professionals. Research skills, lateral thinking and creative imagination are central to all units.
Year Two — You will further develop your skills with a specific focus on future concepts and innovative, creative branding strategies. Exploration of applied theories to digital applications, social media platforms and multi-platform branding will further enhance your approach to branding and communication. Creative concept development will be supported through the study of consumers’ shifting relationship with brands and luxury, the emergence of new global consumption communities, online communication and identity formation, and trend forecasting of styles and ideas. Live projects and competitions will expand your external contacts and enhance your professionalism, confidence, experience and employability.
Year Three — You will consolidate your in-depth knowledge of developing fashion branding strategies and communication campaigns to produce a creative and professional portfolio. The self-directed final year takes a holistic approach through a body of research that is supported by reflective and critical writing. This culminates in the realisation of a graduate folio which reflects your individual philosophy and career aspirations as a fashion branding professional and creative thinker/communicator.
Work Experience
Work experience covers a broad range of activities and students are encouraged to undertake work placements during their time at University. As well as guidance from the course team our Careers, Employability and Enterprise team offer support that enhances employability skills and underpins engagement with industry.
Course Specification
Destination Careers
Career opportunities include creative direction, fashion branding, brand management, fashion buying, set building, fashion promotion, fashion advertising, PR, event management, styling, concept development, curation, and visual merchandising.
Entry Requirements
We’re looking for students with the best potential to succeed - irrespective of their background. That’s why we welcome a wide range of qualifications and experience.
Click here to view our entry requirements
Portfolio Guide
A well presented portfolio says a lot about an applicant, their vision and their work. Our guidance is not meant to limit your creative statement and should act as a guide only.
In general terms however we would expect a combination of the following:
- Examples of drawing and colour usage
- Experimental mixed media/material samples
- Examples of design/idea development
- Examples or photographs of 2D and 3D work
- Critical diary, notebook, essay etc.
At this stage in your career we would much rather see experimental and playful drawing and design developmental work rather than necessarily all finished work showing a final solution. We would like to see a personal and well presented portfolio; there is no need for heavy card and plastic sleeves. We do not need to see all the work you have produced - around 20-30 samples in your main portfolio would be ideal.
We also run a range of daytime and evening portfolio development courses specialising in preparation for further and higher art and design education. For more information on current courses please click here.
Contact Hours & Teaching/Learning Methods
Undergraduate degree programmes at Leeds Arts University are delivered and supported through a range of teaching and learning strategies. Programmes are made up of modules, these are elements of study that are taught and assessed separately. Each module carries a clearly identified credit value, the accumulation of which will allow you to progress to the next level of the programme. 100 hours of learning are expected for every ten credits of the programme. Each level (year) of the programme is made up of 120 credits and therefore requires 1200 hours of learning. This equates to 40 hours of study per week throughout the academic year.
For every 100 hours of learning, approximately 25 hours are delivered as taught or supported sessions and remaining hours are allocated for studio/workshop access and independent learning. Individual programmes have their own learning cultures based on their specific use of the teaching and learning methods listed here. These methods feature differently depending on the programme, level, aims of module, content of the sessions and progress through an academic year.
For further information see our Undergraduate teaching & learning at Leeds Arts University document.
Tuition Fees and Other Costs
Tuition Fees
Our current fees are listed here
Other Costs
Further costs of study are related largely to the costs of materials and depend very much on how individual students choose to respond to University briefs. The costs below are the result of asking our students to state how much they spend during the year and creating an average, as such they are indicative only.
Equipment & Materials
- Level 4 (First Year) A general art box/art materials are needed throughout the course and will be dependent on personal practice - £120 (approximately)
- Level 5 (Second Year) As above - £120-150 (approximately)
- Level 6 (Third Year) Extended practice module related costs - £400 (this is only an estimation, as costs of level 6 modules are entirely dependent upon individual students’ direction).
Trips
In the first year we would like to take our students to London and in the second year to Paris and/or Antwerp. The residential visit which we expect level 4 students to join will be a two day (one nights) trip to London. The cost is approximately £140 for travel and accommodation plus your own individual spending money.
An educational visit to Paris and/or Antwerp takes place in semester 2 for Level 5 students. The trip includes travel ‘to and from’ Paris/Brussels via St Pancras for a 4 night/5 day stay. The overall amount of the trip is approximately £320 with an additional average amount of £160 spending money for the 5 days.
Terms & Conditions and Key Information
Our Terms & Conditions are here.
If you would like to download the Key Information on this course click here.
International Opportunities / Visiting and exchange students
We are delighted to welcome undergraduate visiting and exchange students from Europe and around the world who would like to spend a semester or a full academic year taking credits from our exciting range of courses. You will be fully integrated into the academic and social life of the University during a period of full-time supervised study and your credits transferred back to your home institution.
You can join us through programmes such as Erasmus+, individual university partnerships or as an independent applicant. Please see here for more information and how to apply.
Leeds Arts University students interested in spending some time overseas can find information on the international opportunities available during your course here.
Questions? Contact international@leeds-art.ac.uk
