Course summary

Contemporary Fashion Design The fashion industry is worth c£62BN to the UK economy and consistently employs some 400,000 people. However, there are powerful changes afoot in the industry around the world that seek to address the environmental damage; exploitative business models and employment conditions that are so often attached to it - especially so in fast fashion. There is also a growing awareness across the industry of the need for the design of clothing and accessories that are inclusive; a need to embrace fashion design for disability with ‘adaptive fashion.’ Liverpool Hope BA Contemporary Fashion Design; will be the first undergraduate option to study these concerns and become the first dedicated undergraduate fashion with a conscience programme available in the UK HEI sector. Contemporary Fashion Design will be centered around the body; materials and an understanding and knowledge of sustainable and ethical living. The diversity of our workshops - which range from traditional technologies through to our digital Fab Lab - will ensure a diversity of production and design around the fundamentals of tactility and materiality. Ethical production - the exploration of materials and low waste production methodologies - will be core to the programme providing students with an understanding of sustainability and ethical living - in short, fashion design for a healthier future. The programme will provide an environment that enables rich interdisciplinary approaches at undergraduate level which will include working on live briefs and competitions and engaging in established links. Digital Creativity The proposed BA Digital Creativity major will educate students towards creating work that bridges the gap between traditional creative practices and their modern technologically-facilitated counterparts from gaming, to graphic design to music and dance. It responds to the continuing appropriation of emerging digital technologies by artists with the aim of discovering new approaches for creative expression, often referred to under the umbrella term Creative Convergence. The course responds to the teaching and research interests of staff within the subjects of Music, Performance and Visual Arts as well as colleagues in the areas related to Computer Science. Students will learn how to use a variety of technologies and realise assessed projects; these may include motion capture, haptic feedback, interaction design, data sonification visualisation, animation & sound design, and coding/scripting in relevant languages strictly for creative output. The course will be structured around lectures, practical seminars and workshops and tutorials. There is the expectation of independent study for the realisation of creative digital applications. The practical seminars will act as laboratories for students to experiment with these technologies and enhance their skillsets, working towards a signature practice that primes them for the digital creative sector. The lectures provide a theoretical basis for students to critically position their work, further developed through student-led discussions in tutorials. The lecture content also informs the seminars, ensuring that students are able to perceive the practical application of these ideas. In their first year of study, students will be introduced to the key practitioners and practices who demonstrate the ways digital technologies enrich the creative potential of traditional art forms. Please note that Combined Honours degrees at Liverpool Hope University are split 50/50. This means both subjects will be studied equally.