Dress for career success with an MDes Design with Fashion Design from a global university
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Careers in fashion combine art, aesthetics and versatility to support the creative world around what we wear. Put your business nous and artistic flair to good use in this exciting and enduring industry with the University of Sunderland’s 100% online MDes Design with Fashion Design.
This course is meticulously crafted to nurture highly skilled and ethically conscious designers who grasp the influential role of design in shaping society and the world.
Become immersed in the critical aspects of fashion design through a dynamic curriculum blending theoretical frameworks, historical contexts, practical exercises, and case studies, and develop the skills and acumen needed to critically analyse and creatively address design challenges.
A fusion of design theory and practice, your studies will be supported by specialised online tutors dedicated to your successful completion.
Designed for adaptability and global applicability, the course covers a diverse array of media, materials, techniques, and processes, so you can align your learning to your passions and career aspirations. Finally, you will be equipped with the technical proficiency and creative ingenuity, career-oriented mindset, and full understanding of the creative industries landscape needed to excel in the exciting world of fashion.
Fashion design professionals contribute their work to positively impact society and the world. Through this course will gain a full understanding of this impact, as well as a systemic understanding of design knowledge and awareness of the current challenges and new insights of modern design practice.
As a graduate you will have gained a broad knowledge of the creative industries and can use this understanding to confidently recognise and pursue career paths as well as position, promote and assess the likely demand for your work as a creative.
The University of Sunderland’s experience teaching international students spans 40 years and our global reach extends across campus locations in Hong Kong, Sunderland and London, as well as links in the Caribbean, Greece, Kenya, Malaysia, Lanka, Oman, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tashkent and Vietnam. We champion the diversity of our online learners who benefit from a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds and graduate with truly global professional networks.
We have international students in all corners of the globe and a high percentage of our student cohort are distance learners. Our work in UK widening participation is also highly regarded and we have been awarded 7th in the UK for social inclusion (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024).
Our expertise, our cutting-edge technology and our vast experience delivering excellent online learning experiences to global students is key to what sets the University of Sunderland and our online MDes Design with Fashion Design apart.
Fashion is where art, aesthetics, and innovation meet, and where creativity transforms the way the world dresses. With the University of Sunderland’s 100% online MDes Design with Fashion, you’ll turn your artistic vision and business insight into impact across the global fashion landscape.
This master’s develops designers who are not only highly skilled but also socially and ethically aware. Through a dynamic mix of theory, history, practice, and case studies, you’ll explore the cultural and commercial power of design while mastering the tools to analyse, create, and lead with purpose.
Guided by expert online tutors, you’ll engage with a wide range of media, materials, and processes, customising your learning around your creative goals and career ambitions. By the end of the course, you’ll graduate with the technical ability, critical mindset, and creative confidence to thrive in the fast-evolving world of fashion design.
Explore how fashion design shapes culture, influences behaviour, and drives positive change. This online master’s in fashion builds your knowledge of contemporary design practice and equips you with the critical insight to understand, and respond to, the creative, social, and ethical dimensions of the industry.
Offering our fashion design course 100% online removes the barriers that often hold working professionals back from pursuing postgraduate study. You’ll have the freedom to learn your way, on your schedule, with complete access to everything you need to succeed.
With over 40 years of international teaching experience, the University of Sunderland brings together a vibrant global community of learners. Our online MDes Design is shaped by this international perspective, giving you the opportunity to study, collaborate and grow in a diverse and connected environment.
Benefits of being part of our global network:
I am programme leader for BA (Hons) Illustration and Design. I have 20 years of experience in the illustration, games, and animation industry, working on projects ranging from concept art, character design, and 3D modelling, to art management and 2D animation.
In my early career, I designed and modelled characters for console games, including 'Call of Cthulhu' and 'Futurama the Game' before becoming a Lead Artist and eventually, Art Manager. I managed concept art projects for clients including Sony, Microsoft, Warner Bros Games, and Lego and have worked on titles such as 'Watchdogs', 'Injustice, Gods Among Us' and 'Killzone'.
"I'd wanted to study a master's in design for years, but it always felt unobtainable. Discovering Sunderland's programme changed everything. I can continue working full time while studying on a programme with a strong ethos in using design to create a better world. The learning is stimulating, the staff are genuinely inspiring and the support is excellent. In just a few months, I feel far more confident in who I am as a designer."
MDes Design student
If English isn't your first language you may need to provide evidence of your English language ability. We accept the following qualifications:
Relevant organisational experience could include working in a design practice, creative agency, in-house design team, or as a freelance designer. We recognise there are many routes into the design industry, not all of which follow a traditional academic path, and we welcome applicants with relevant professional or industry experience.
Most computers can run the software used on the course, with some tools operating within web browsers. It is helpful to have a computer, laptop or tablet capable of running 2D and 3D design applications, but we aim to ensure assignments do not require excessive computing power. If you have concerns about whether your equipment is suitable, please get in touch and we’d be happy to advise.
A background in a creative discipline is recommended, but your application will also be considered if you can demonstrate relevant professional experience or a strong creative portfolio.
All teaching, resources, and assessments are delivered through our custom-built online learning platform. You’ll engage with interactive materials, recorded lectures, discussion forums, and one-to-one tutor support while learning flexibly.
Yes. This online fashion course is designed for flexibility, allowing you to balance your studies with personal and professional commitments through asynchronous learning and part-time study options.
With six intakes each year, you can begin your studies within weeks of admission, rather than waiting for a traditional academic start date.
Fees Total
595
If you are based in the UK, you may be eligible for a government-backed postgraduate loan to cover the full costs of the course.
In addition, if you have successfully completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Sunderland, you are eligible for a 10% tuition fees reduction on our postgraduate programmes.
You pay tuition fees for each module taken, either module-by-module or in full at the start of your course.
Gain a critical understanding and experiment with a range of ideation techniques and approaches to developing creative ideas. Finetune your understanding with input from top professionals and understand how to honestly rate an idea. Learn to build a hook to captivate your audience, whether through storytelling and narrative, surprise and novelty, authenticity and passion or clever copywriting.
Effectively present and communicate your ideas. Select and apply your ideation techniques to produce imaginative concepts for a live or envisaged project.
Develop a critical understanding human activity’s impact on this planet, and the intentions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Learn how to be more sustainable in your own design practice, and how to use the power of design to influence other people to live more sustainably. Explore sustainability through a variety of lenses such as climate action, reversing poverty, good health and wellbeing for all, gender equality, affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, life below water and more.
Apply your design skills to address one of the many important global challenges in SDG. Aim to win a University Sustainable Futures Prize through your work in trying to make the world fit for future generations.
Develop a comprehensive understanding of approaches to design research, techniques and methodologies that can be applied to your own work, or advanced scholarship. Learn the importance of self-directed continuing professional development, as a normal means for creatives to innovate and push their boundaries and to stay at the forefront of a fast-changing creative world.
Learn how to make a brand stand out in an increasingly a micro-attentive world. Capture attention across different media and platforms including social media. Understand and experiment with key design approaches such as micro-content and snackable design, interactive and immersive experiences, multi-sensory branding, brand storytelling and associations and more. Develop a deeper understanding of brand personality, tone of voice and maintaining authenticity.
Apply your design knowledge and skills to an exciting branding project and document your creative journey through a module journal/design diary.
Experiment with a range of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and new technologies designed to generate text, images, video, sound, computer code and other key outputs. Gain a critical understanding of the copyright and ethical considerations in the use of AI. Develop a robust understanding of how AI tools and new technologies can be used ethically in the process of creative design, without replacing the need for human expertise, decision-making and ingenuity. Apply your developing skills with AI to creative outcomes.
Gain the critical knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to lead and manage design-driven initiatives in various industries, fostering innovation, and driving business success through design. Gain insights into strategic design thinking and the leadership and management of design.
Develop an understanding of practical applications by learning from real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful design management practices. Understand some of the key considerations and issues around intellectual property and copyright.
Recognise some of the issues around managing teams and external partners, and better understand the role of a designer in the bigger picture of the design process. Use your creative design skills to explain or illuminate important aspects of design management to a non-specialist audience.
Gain the critical knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to lead and manage design-driven initiatives in various industries, fostering innovation, and driving business success through design. Gain insights into strategic design thinking and the leadership and management of design.
Develop an understanding of practical applications by learning from real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful design management practices. Understand some of the key considerations and issues around intellectual property and copyright.
Recognise some of the issues around managing teams and external partners, and better understand the role of a designer in the bigger picture of the design process. Use your creative design skills to explain or illuminate important aspects of design management to a non-specialist audience.
Develop a critical understanding of the role and power of design to change hearts and minds, perceptions and behaviours, and create real impact on society. Develop your study skills and research methodology. Investigate and critically evaluate how key approaches to design for social change have succeeded or failed in your own specialism, in past and contemporary work.
Identify important societal or global issues that you are passionate about, and apply what you’ve learned to develop your own ideas, concepts and creative designs for a project that will help make the world a better place.
Gain a critical understanding of strategies to maximise the chances of interview and employment including common shortlisting processes, and key interview questions and responses. Critically evaluate approaches to self-employment and the pros and cons of different types of structure. Understand some of the key profit/loss, tax implications and impacts on lifestyle, of being employed or self-employed.
Develop strategies for identifying employers or clients that would value your style of work and those you would like to work with. Fine-tune how you describe your skills and knowledge and align it to your ideal career path.
Gain a critical understanding of what constitutes good self-promotional materials in differing contexts, such as showreel, portfolio and online profile. Understand the power of interaction with your audience and plan to harness unpaid promotion and advertising. Learn the language of self-description, that allows the highlighting of strengths while avoiding appearance of arrogance.
Apply your advanced skills to design self-promotional materials that will give you the best chance of gaining the kind of work that you aspire to do as a career.
Research and critically analyse key design practitioners, design movements, styles, theories or design history in their contexts. Gain an awareness of some of the principles of the decolonisation of design. Evaluate areas of design theory or history that are particularly relevant to your current design practice.
Produce artefacts (posters, motion design or whatever best suits the message) which illustrate the principles of that history/theory and thoughtfully critique the work or communicate how that work is relevant to your current or emerging practice.
Gain a critical understanding of what a ‘design manifesto’ is, and how these have been used, or have been influential through history. Reflect on your own ethos or philosophy about the role and practice of design in the world. Reflect on your own values, beliefs and motivations as a designer. Create your own new design manifesto. Discuss ways of promoting your manifesto to diverse audiences and the intended impact that you would like to see from its dissemination.
Critically understand how implementing the practices from your own personal philosophy of design, could be a roadmap to becoming who you want to be as a designer, and making the kind of positive impact on the world that you aspire to.
