Fashion Styling and Creative Direction with Art & Design Foundation Year

Got a passion for creative design? Not quite ready to undertake a full honours degree? Solent University’s Design Foundation Programme is perfectly suited to students who may not be from an art- design- or fashion-related background or whose qualifications do not meet the admissions requirements of their chosen course.

The Art and Design Foundation Year builds the fundamental skills, behaviours, and creative confidence needed for successful progression into higher-level study or early-stage industry engagement. Through a practice-led curriculum, you will learn to generate ideas, experiment across a range of media, and communicate visually through a developing portfolio- key expectations within creative professions. You'll also learn to interpret contextual research, reflect on your practice, and engage constructively with peers and tutors, mirroring industry processes of collaboration, critique, and iteration.

You'll be supported to develop resilience, adaptability, and self-awareness and by the end of the year, you will have a portfolio demonstrating creative progression, an understanding of how research informs experimentation, and the confidence to participate in a creative community. These foundations position you strongly for degree-level study and for exploring future opportunities within the creative industries.

Most students progress from the foundation year into their chosen creative degree, leading to careers in areas such as fine art, photography, graphic design, illustration, interiors, fashion, make-up and prosthetics, and related creative industries. However, the course also develops strong transferable and employability skills, including creativity, adaptability, communication, problem-solving, and teamwork.

FOUNDATION YEAR
CORE MODULES

Metamorphosis
Utopia and Dystopia
Creative Industries Launchpad
Creative Showcase

YEAR ONE
CORE MODULES

Icons and Image
Fashion Moments
Beauty Futures
Fashion Stories: Concept to Print

YEAR TWO
CORE MODULES

Future Focus
Fashion in Motion
Creative Campaign Direction
The Fashion Statement

FINAL YEAR
CORE MODULES

Major Project: Create
Major Project: Ideas and investigation
Professional Identity
Professional Perspectives

You will be assessed by:
Assignments
Final major project
As part of this course, you will study one module at a time, giving you the chance to build a deeper understanding and see the results of your hard work more quickly. With regular assessments and feedback, rather than exams all at once, you’ll also benefit from improved focus, and a more manageable workload.

You will be assessed by:

Assignments
Final major project

Solent’s curriculum framework builds on our unique, creative and applied approach to teaching. The transformation of students’ lives is at the heart of our mission as a university, and our curriculum – informed by the latest theory – reflects this shared educational vision.