BA (Honours) Textile Design explores the three main textile design practices - print, knit and weave - alongside digital and non-traditional approaches to textile design, trend prediction and presentation.

BA Textile Design also offers complementary workshops in the use of alternative surface treatments, media and technologies. During your first year you'll study two or three of the specialist areas, gradually learning which suits your talents best. Early in the second year you'll decide which of them to study in depth.

The degree course aims to maximise your creative and intellectual potential by developing your individual strengths and design philosophy. You'll gain an understanding of the professional context and practice of textile design. You'll also build a personal creative identity and aesthetic vocabulary informed by historical, cultural and technical knowledge, and by the practical experience of making textiles.

BA Textile Design graduates are equipped to pursue a wide range of careers such as designers, designers / makers, researchers, buyers, stylists and illustrators. They work in concept and trend forecasting, in the theatre or journalism and are able to embrace a wide variety of opportunities presented by the global textiles and design industries, and postgraduate study. You are introduced to this complex professional context and the skills it demands through your project work, workshop practices, the international professional practice and research experience of your staff and the Visiting Speakers, Careers, Business Awareness, and Cultural Studies programmes.

Students on BA (Honours) Textile Design work alongside those studying textiles at postgraduate level as well as students on the BA and MA Fashion Courses.

BA Textile Design runs for 90 weeks full time over three years, and is divided into three Levels (or Stages), each lasting 30 weeks. The whole degree course is credit-rated at 360 credits, with 120 credits at each Level (Stage).

Under the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications the Levels for a BA are: Level 4 (which is stage 1 of the course), Level 5 (Stage 2) and Level 6 (Stage 3).

There's a progression point at the end of each Level and, in order to progress, all units of the preceding Level must normally have been passed.

If you're unable to continue on the course a Certificate of Higher Education (Cert HE) will normally be offered following the successful completion of Level 4, or a Diploma in Higher Education following the successful completion of Level 5.

To gain a BA (Honours), students must successfully complete 360 credits. The final award consists of marks from Level 6 units only, weighted according to their credits.

Course outline

BA Textile Design has three specialist pathways - Knit, Print and Weave. Regardless of pathway, learning is student-centred with a focus on development of the individual. There's no set formula for success. You're expected to take responsibility for your own ideas and to become increasingly independent in your learning as you progress.

Main study - Stage One

Stage One introduces you to the three principal areas of print, weave and knit, and to areas of visual research.

In these first three terms you'll progress from introductory design workshops to a series of structured projects developing your research, drawing, colour, design and technical skills in two or three of the textile specialisms. You'll also explore digital and non-traditional approaches to design, structure and surface.

Main study - Stage Two

During this stage you'll do further research and begin to develop ideas into textiles and textile products. Your substantial research helps you to apply all the knowledge and skills you gained in the first year and to meet the challenges of turning your ideas into finite textiles or textile products.

Spring term marks the point where you begin to focus your studies on Knit, Print or Weave. The three specialisms have distinctive requirements and characteristics in terms of their subject knowledge. Aims and learning outcomes, however, are shared - they involve extending your professional and contextual knowledge of textile design for fashion, accessories, interior, exterior and product applications while continuing to develop your design experience and identity. You'll also continue to explore digital technologies and non-traditional approaches to design for structure and surface.

During this stage you'll be introduced to professional working practices in areas such as market research, range building and promotional presentation. And you'll continue to carry your own expertise and knowledge towards more independent judgment.

Main study - Stage Three

Your final year allows you to target strengths and weakness before embarking on your final degree project. You'll start developing your personal interests, focusing on designing textiles and surfaces for fashion, accessories, interior, exterior or product contexts.

The degree course's project-based structure is replaced increasingly by a more self-directed progress towards the realisation of your major project. With the support and guidance of academic and technical staff you'll develop your portfolio and collection towards the degree examination and public show.

Cultural Studies

In Stage One you'll attend lectures on a range of cultural themes, including course-specific options and broader aspects of popular culture, art and design. The cultural studies programme offers an opportunity to meet students from other courses within the School in seminars, and to discuss cultural issues. It's a chance to test and develop your discussion, research and writing skills.

In Stage Two you begin work on your degree dissertation research. This provides you with an opportunity to carry out a body of research on a subject of your choice. The dissertation contributes to your overall degree classification.

The dissertation in Stage Three represents the culmination of your cultural studies work for your degree. It consolidates your research and writing skills, offering you a unique opportunity to develop a cultural study of your own. It's a written project that calls for structured analysis of a chosen aspect of visual, textual or spatial culture.

Personal and Professional Development (PPD) helps to prepare you for employment and career development by providing you with skills to enable you to take responsibility for your own learning. The core study of Textile Design also helps develop many of these transferable skills, which play their part in equipping you for a professional career and the generic activities of creative practice.

PPD is integral to BA Textile Design and is embedded in many aspects of both the studio and cultural studies programmes as a planned part of their structure and learning content. PPD activities take place in all Stages of the degree course and aim to improve your capacity to understand what and how you are learning and to help you to review, plan and take responsibility for your own learning. A considerable number of the skills learned in the academic context of BA Textile Design have a wider value and use in other areas of life. These transferable skills are highly valued by employers.

Developing your skills - external activities

BA Textile Design maintains active collaborations with key cultural institutions, venues and commercial enterprises to introduce you to London's networks of creative practice.

Current collaborations include work with Gainsborough Silk Weaving Co Ltd, WGSN, Worshipful Company of Weavers, Ballantines, Gianfranco Ferré, Vanners. Polartec, Timothy Everest, Pure, Muraspec, Stoll, Anthropologie, Next and The Wellcome Trust.

BA Textile Design graduates are equipped to pursue a wide range of careers as designers, designer-makers, researchers, buyers, stylists and illustrators. They work in concept and trend forecasting, in the theatre or in journalism, and are able to embrace a wide variety of opportunities presented by the global textiles and design industries. Many go on to postgraduate study.

Recent BA Textile Design alumni activity demonstrates the breadth of student activity within the subject, with these names among others achieving prominence: Alice Temperley, Ptolemy Mann, Alex Gore Brown, Lisa Stickly, Wallace & Sewell, Mary Katranzou.

This degree course requires portfolio evidence

Entry to BA Textile Design is highly competitive. Selection is determined by the quality of the application, indicated primarily in your portfolio of work and written statements. A very high proportion of successful applicants complete a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. Applicants are normally expected to have achieved, or be expected to achieve, the course entry requirements detailed below:

• Foundation Studies in Art and Design
• A pass in 1 GCE A level
• Passes at GCSE level or equivalent in 3 subjects (grade C or above).

or

• BTEC National Diploma
• Passes at GCSE level or equivalent in 3 subjects (grade C or above).

This educational level may be demonstrated by possession of equivalent qualifications; e.g. International Baccalaureat or High School Diploma.

Applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered if the course team judges the application demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might be demonstrated by, for example: related academic or work experience; the quality of the personal statement; a strong academic or other professional reference; or a combination of these factors.

English language requirements

All classes are conducted in English. If English is not your first language you will be asked to provide evidence of your English language ability in order to apply for a visa, enrol, and start your course. The standard English language requirement for entry is IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in any one paper, or equivalent. For further information visit the English Language requirements page.

Applicants who will need a Tier 4 General Student Visa should check the Visa and Immigration page which provides important information about UK Border Agency (UKBA) requirements.

What we look for

We are looking for lively, energetic, committed, creative people who are hard-working and adaptable; those for whom fabrics, colour, pattern and form have a special fascination.

Selection criteria

Applicants are selected according to their demonstration of potential and current ability to:

Work imaginatively and creatively in two and three dimensional visual media

• Engage with experimentation and invention
• Show imagination and ambition in proposals for your work
• Take informed risks

Demonstrate a range of skills and technical abilities

• Through your portfolio, demonstrate a range of approaches to design development, material manipulation and sensitivity to colour riginated from personal experience or visual research and progressed through logical stages to a finished design solutions
• Evidence of handling a material or medium with sensitivity to its qualities
• Demonstrate engagement and improvement in a recently learned technical skill
• Demonstrate an awareness of planning and time management skills

Provide evidence of intellectual enquiry within their work

• Demonstrate relevant research
• Evidence your ability to critically reflect and evaluate your achievements

Demonstrate cultural awareness and/or contextual framework of their work

• Evidence an interest in contemporary art and design
• Identify social and/or cultural influences on your work

Articulate and communicate intentions clearly

• Discuss your work in individual and group situations
• Present your work appropriately and effectively

Demonstrate commitment and motivation in relation to the subject and the degree course

• Develop your own ideas and address both set and personal project briefs
• Show willingness to collaborate
• Show initiative

Portfolio and interview advice

Your portfolio should demonstrate creative development, whether for a college project or in your personal work. By creative development, we mean ideas that have originated through your own experience and research and progressed towards potential visual proposals. Ideas, visual research and experimentation are more important than finished design solutions and can be shown in two-dimensional work, or through material experimentation, three-dimensional manipulation and the production of models and maquettes. It is important that the creative work you include reflects and demonstrates your thinking, initiative and personal commitment to a particular project, theme or idea.

Both in your portfolio and at the interview we are interested in you as an individual, your personal interests, your creativity and initiative in finding out about your proposed area of study. We would also like to know about your favourite designers and artists, where you have seen their work at first hand and how you have acquired more information about the work that interests you.

Home / EU applicants

Apply to BA Textile Design through the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) website. From the UCAS home page go to 'Apply', where you’ll be able to register and create a password that gives you unique access as you complete your application form.

The University UCAS code is UAL. The University code is U65. The course code is W235 BA/Texdes.

The deadline for equal consideration is 15 January 2012.

International applicants

If you are from outside the European Union: You have three options to apply for undergraduate courses.

• Apply through UCAS. The deadline for equal consideration is 15 January 2012
• Apply directly to Central Saint Martins. Choose this option if you are only applying to undergraduate courses at UAL
• Apply through one of our overseas representatives.

Visit the undergraduate application page for full details of these options.

Study Abroad

For information on applying to Study Abroad please visit the Study Abroad section.

We're here to help

Our website includes all the information you need to successfully apply. However, if you still have unanswered questions about the admissions process, please contact us by email: international@csm.arts.ac.uk

The University has a dedicated team to help prepare you for your studies. For help on visa requirements, housing, tuition fees and language requirements visit the University's International section.

The Language Centre offers international students quality language training from qualified and experienced teachers. The Pre-sessional Academic English Programme is available to all international (non-EU) students who have been offered a place on a full time course at the University of the Arts. For further information visit the Language Centre website.

We also offer a number of short courses that enable students to improve their portfolios and English skills before applying to their chosen course. For further information visit our Short Course section.

Deferred entry

Entry can only be deferred in exceptional circumstances. Please contact us before submitting your application if you're considering applying for deferred entry.

What happens next?

Home / EU and International applicants applying through UCAS

All application forms, personal statements and references are read and considered by the course team against the selection criteria listed under What We Look For. Depending on the quality of your application, you will then be invited to submit a mini portfolio.

Mini-portfolio

Please ensure that your mini folio contains evidence of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ research, ideas development and experimentation with a different range of materials, techniques and media as well as finished pieces. Your work could be the result of set projects and self initiated work. We like to see sketchbooks / notebooks, working drawings, life-drawing, photography, textile techniques, material and media manipulation, 2D or 3D work. Demonstrate your ability to tackle visual problems and find inventive/creative solutions. It is useful to organize your folio into categories to make it easier to view. Avoid repetition and demonstrate a wide range of your skills.

The Mini Portfolio should comprise photographs or colour copies of your best work showing your skills and thinking. It should include:

• Sketching
• Two and three-dimensional work including experimentation and development
• Material and media manipulation
• Inspiration and research material
• Demonstration of textile techniques and skills
• A 250 word statement about the mini-portfolio

Specifications
Maximum of 10 pages (maximum A3 size) bound together. Each page must be labelled with your name, email address & telephone number.

Deadline
The mini portfolio must be received no later than 15 February 2012

Home/EU applicants should send the mini portfolio to Student Administration, BA Textile Design, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA.

International applicants should send the mini portfolio to The International Office, BA Textile Design. Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA.

Please note that due to the high number of applicants mini portfolios are non-returnable. Please do not include original work, only photographs or good quality copies.

Following a review of your mini portfolio, you will either be invited to attend with a full portfolio or your application will be rejected.

Full-portfolio review

The portfolio should be brought to the college and left for consideration by the selection panel. Although most decisions are made on the basis of portfolio and documentation, we do sometimes conduct short interviews in order to clarify aspects of your application or your work. Interviews for shortlisted applicants will take place on the same day as the portfolio review.

Please note that if you are unable to attend the portfolio review and interview you can arrange for a friend to bring in your portfolio on the day you are invited to attend. Your application and portfolio would be considered without the interview. Postal applications are considered by this course.

To discuss this option further: Home/EU applicants should contact the Student Administration, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA.

International Postal applicants should contact the International Office, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA.

International applicants applying directly to Central Saint Martins

You will be asked to submit a full portfolio for review. This can be in the form of printed photographs or images on USB. If you are in the UK you can bring your portfolio of original work to the College. Selection is usually based on the review of your portfolio of work.

International Postal Portfolio should be sent to the International Office, BA Textile Design, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA.

Selection is conducted by two members of staff and offers of places are made on the basis of the selection criteria. Notes are kept in relation to decisions made following the interview process.