Surface Pattern and Textiles (Swansea College of Art) MDes (Hons)

University of Wales

Our Integrated Masters Surface Pattern and Textiles course at Swansea College of Art UWTSD is a vibrant, multidisciplinary programme where we explore textiles, materiality, pattern and making in the far-reaching contexts of fashion, interiors, object and design led galleries. We are a materials-based course with textiles at the core, we don’t limit ourselves by material discipline! Students explore cloth, paper, metal, wood, plastics, ceramics, glass, biomaterials – then they decide where they take it.

The Intergrated Masters programme option allows students to seamlessly continue studying from the undergraduate levels to a fourth year at level 7. This programme enables a higher level of specialism and extends the research established during the student’s third year into a fourth year.

The programme sits in a portfolio of courses within Surface Pattern and Textiles which is of great benefit to our students who thrive on the collaborative, interdisciplinary study that is possible. These students work together until the end of the third year when the BA students graduate. MDes students don’t graduate until the end of the fourth year. The BA programmes in this portfolio are on specialist pathways - Fashion, Interiors and Maker, the Integrated Masters is different. The MDes programme allows students to truly harness their interdisciplinary potential by not specifying a pathway. By the time students reach Level 7 they are essentially designing their own pathway niche, and often find themselves sitting in new forward-looking spaces, or highly specialised areas of the wider design community.

We encourage student individuality rather than enforce a house style. Demands for originality, innovation, professionalism, and relevance are paramount in steering the individual to identify their own distinct voice within a highly competitive graduate market.

The course is academically challenging, contemporary in outlook, and students are taught a wealth of practical and technical skills, enjoying the design potential of our extensive digital and more traditional facilities. The Surface Pattern and Textiles course offers the best training and facilities to prepare our graduates for a breadth of creative careers. With a highly sophisticated multi-disciplinary skillset across all aspects of digital and material processes associated with textiles, surface pattern, hard materials, new materials, sustainable practices and design communication, our graduates go on to work in a myriad of areas; fashion, interiors, stationery, design led craft, ideation, trend forecasting, print making, surface design for architectural and spatial contexts, sustainable design, to name but a few. Often graduates evolve to work fluidly between employment and freelance opportunities, having learnt the importance of, and acquired the skills to capitalise on varying opportunities whilst on the programme. Many graduates go on to establish their own creative enterprises.

We believe in handling creativity and employability in equal measure - often these elements will be separated in the HE learning experience, but not here in Surface Pattern and Textiles. You will find them intertwined through every project that you work on, it becomes second nature. Our students graduate as designers and makers ready to flourish in a wide range of creative employment, having had significant live projects, exhibition experiences and industry liaisons embedded in their studies. These are built in from year one. Recent live projects have been undertaken with Patternbank, Orangebox, H&M, Eley Kishimoto and St Fagans National Museum of History to name but a few.

Students are all housed within our fantastic studio space allowing a great platform for learning and collaboration. Each student has their own personal desk and drawer space – a space to make it vital.