Fashion Branding & Communication BA (Hons)
with or without Professional Practice Year
Course overview
Fashion isn't always about the catwalk - there's a whole world of promotions, public relations and branding behind it. On our BA (Hons) Fashion Branding & Communication degree course, we'll help you become an expert in the fashion business.
Taught at UCA Epsom's Business School for the Creative Industries, this course will develop your knowledge in fashion promotion, help you create your own brand identity and give you skills across a wide range of creative media, including photography, film, graphics, print, digital design, and Interactive media.
You will learn and explore how brands communicate and operate through business and innovative thinking, and visualise your projects using software like the Adobe Creative Cloud suite as you develop ways to communicate your creative ideas to consumers.
By the time you graduate, you’ll be an expert in building lasting relationships and positive reputations through communication, self-promotion, networking and technology.
| Length of study | 3 years full-time or, 4 years full-time with Professional Practice Year |
|---|---|
| Campus | Epsom |
| Entry requirements | 112 UCAS tariff points |
| Course entry options | Sept 2021, Sept 2022 |
| UCAS institution code | C93 |
| UCAS code | WN65 |
| UCAS code for course with Professional Practice | WN66 |
Course details
Year 1 focuses on developing your understanding of key fashion promotion and branding theoretical and practical concepts and the importance of embracing visual literacy within it. Alongside studying how creative economies work and the place of businesses within them, you will explore the core business practices that are foundational to effective management of proposals in Branding and Communication.
Business Bootcamp 1: Design Thinking & Orientation
This unit is designed to introduce you to the Business School for the Creative Industries highly effective learning community and professional global network orientation as you explore design thinking.
Fashion: Theories & Histories
This unit will situate fashion in broader economic and political practices. These impact how audiences & consumers value and engage with creative outputs in the public sphere.
Foundations of Marketing and Communications
You will be introduced to the concepts, theories and models utilised in marketing and communications, providing the basis for further study within the course.
Creative Fashion Branding Communication
This unit will introduce you to the wider contexts surrounding Fashion Branding and Communication. It begins with a critical engagement with fashion brand campaigns in their many forms. Through a series of lectures and group discussions, you will be introduced to the key concepts of fashion as a vehicle of cultural communication
Business Seminar 1 – Understanding Consumers
This unit explores what happens before, during, and after the point when someone buys something. It investigates how having (or not having) certain products affects our lives; specifically, how these items influence how we feel about ourselves and each other, especially with the influence of social media and the digital consumption.
Business Bootcamp 2: Research and Development
The Bootcamp is an orientation unit for all students commencing Business School programmes and is designed to build a highly effective learning community.
Visual Literacy
This unit is designed to introduce you to Visual Literacy in the context of fashion editorials. You will be provided with an overview of the role the Fashion Stylist and Photographer play within the editorial industry, and begin to comprehend their relationship in the creation of a fashion image.
Understanding Trends & Forecasting
Through this unit, you will explore the concepts, theories and practices of trend forecasting within the context of the creative industries. You will examine the role of the futurologist whose task it is to research, define and develop a forecast of the future and map the structure of ongoing trends, and the direction society is moving with the emphasis on product and experience trends.
Cosmetics & Beauty: Business & Practices (elective unit)
This unit introduces you to the fundamental principles of the cosmetic & beauty business & practices through a global lens. You will identify with how the macro environment affects the cosmetic & beauty industry sector and consumer groups and how it operates, introducing you the various market levels and sectors.
Fashion: Business & Practices (elective unit)
This unit introduces you to the fundamental principles of fashion business & practices through a global lens. You will identify with how the macro environment affects the fashion industry sector and consumer groups and how it operates, introducing you the various market levels and sectors.
Lifestyle Products: Business & Practices (elective unit)
This unit introduces you to the fundamental principles of lifestyle products business & practices through a global lens. You will identify with how the macro environment affects the lifestyle products industry sector and consumer groups and how it operates, introducing you the various market levels and sectors.
Business Seminar 2 – Business Analytics
This unit provides general knowledge about business analytics, illustrated with case studies and examples from various creative industries. In order to use the above-mentioned methods and models effectively, an understanding of underlying probability theory and statistics is needed.
Year 2 deepens your investigation into art direction, live promotional and marketing briefs alongside understanding the wider fashion industry e.g., how public relations operate. You will explore digital marketing and analytics as well as organisational skills that will continue to develop your competencies in the communications business. Your exploration will focus on client requirements and your role as an emerging marketing and communications industry professional.
Business Bootcamp 3: Storytelling and Narrative
This bootcamp provides you with an opportunity to explore narrative structures and experiment how they have been used, particularly in the changing landscape of digital marketing, demonstrating how important it is to develop your storytelling skills in the creative industries.
Art Direction
Within this unit you will be introduced to appropriate practical and technical skills through workshops, discussions and critique and will craft visual layouts of your ideas for maximum impact and effect. The relationship between image and typography will be examined together with the concept of visual hierarchy and the juxtaposition of image, headline and body copy in relation to one another and the creative and practice processes involved in creating a successful advertising campaign.
Influence & Influencers (elective unit)
This unit aims to holistically approach the subject of influence and influencer-led marketing, looking to the practical, critical and theoretical contexts surrounding this subject. We’ll begin by outlining the contexts surrounding influence – including the history of the influencer, and its contemporary applications within fashion, music and advertising.
Digital Marketing Analytics (elective unit)
Digital marketing analytics seeks to understand markets in order to improve marketing actions. The ability to acquire, analyse and to understand large marketing data sets, made possible by digitisation, can improve marketing campaigns and result in better performance. Data sets can be mined using a variety of quantitative techniques. Understanding markets better will enable more effective allocation of marketing budgets and an improved understanding of customer experiences.
Public Relations (elective unit)
Great PR resonates in a way that advertising never can. In this unit you will discover the theories, the personalities, and the good, the bad and the ugly of this craft. You will learn how to produce press releases, boiler plates and building compelling stories and how to pitch them.
Brand Generation
This unit requires you to research and develop ideas to create your own brand. The branding of creative concepts, product, and services form an important consideration in communicating and promoting creative outcomes.
Business Seminar 3: Professional Practice
You will be guided through a series of lectures, workshops and seminars to prepare you for your industry experience; self-diagnosis will be in respect of your interests, strengths, areas for development and your future career ambitions; building and creating your network, how you can make a positive contribution to industry and how you see yourself and others.
Business Bootcamp 4: Exploring Innovation
Through a series of exciting and engaging fast paced workshops, tasks and peer sessions you will be introduced and welcomed to professional practice and conduct in the creative industries through the BSCI Honeycomb Lens where we facilitate self-motivation, exploration, empowerment, and support development and recognition of skills for learning as you experience your business school journey.
Live Industry Project
This unit requires you to research and develop ideas in response to a real brief set by a client from Industry.
Visual Communications
This unit will introduce you to the wider contexts surrounding Visual Communication in a fashion context. It begins with a critical engagement with zines in their many forms. Through a series of lectures, group discussions and practical workshops, you will be introduced to the key concepts of fashion publishing, and how creatives utilise these techniques within a range of independent publications.
Identity & Marketing (elective unit)
This unit will introduce you to how identity and marketing work in tandem. It will look at the symbolism of brand identity and its importance in attracting a loyal customer and the ways marketing utilises data to target segmented consumer groups attracting niche audiences with customised promotions.
Behavioural Studies and Consumption (elective unit)
This unit aims to introduce students to the theory and practice of consumer behaviour and consumption. You will explore how perceptions, learning, memory, personality, and culture influence consumer behaviour and how consumption changes by cultural and subcultural influences.
Professional Placement (for students not on Professional Practice Year pathway)
This unit is self-initiated and will involve you taking a legitimate Industry placement opportunity, regarded by you and your unit leader as an appropriate and unique professional experience.
Creative Innovation (for students on the Professional Practice Year pathway)
This unit is designed for you investigate the real-world, relevant issues that are impacting on your Industry, whilst challenging well-established theory and/or principles which these contemporary issues conflict with.
Industry Lecture Series (for students on the Professional Practice Year pathway)
The series will include industry expert lectures, group workshops and group working, in order to test and explore industry sectors.
If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.
While on the Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.
Year 3 provides an opportunity to develop theoretical and practice with units including ‘self-branding and promotion’ and ‘Data Mining for Marketers’ of creative industries within a global context through to your own major degree project. You will undertake trips branded in-house public relations and agencies which will prepare for your career in professional practice for the creative industries.
Business Bootcamp 5: Research & Methodologies
This bootcamp provides you with an opportunity to understand how effective research can support your studies and methodology is about how you find the answers to your questions and the methods that you use. We shall discuss the different methods by which you can elicit findings whether quantitative (informing by data) or qualitative (informing from opinions). In most of today’s industries ‘data’ is king.
Self-branding & Promotion
On this Unit, you will gain a thorough framework of the contemporary challenges to visibility, traction and communication that face creatives seeking to represent themselves and their values across social media platforms, professional networking websites and freelance labour marketplaces.
Cosmetics & Beauty: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
This unit explores the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global cosmetic & beauty industry. You will be analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. Your work involves an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future of your industry.
Fashion: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
This unit explores the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global fashion industry. You will be analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations.
Lifestyle Goods: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
This unit explores the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global lifestyle goods industry. You will be analysing influence from culture and society, and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations.
Creative Business Start-up (elective unit BA course)
In this unit you will learn the process of creating and building a new business venture. You will explore a range of case studies and identify and evaluate the role of creativity in business start-ups.
Data Mining for Marketers (elective unit BA/BSc course)
Data Mining focuses on the use of automation to uncover relationships within datasets that can be used to support improved decision processes. When employed in marketing, data mining will use customer, potential customer, supplier and population data to reveal patterns in the data that have potential to improve the marketing process and outcomes.
Audience Evaluation (elective unit BA/BSc course)
This unit provides an introduction to audience research in the creative industries, aiming to evaluate how audiences play a key role in shaping creative and cultural experiences and marketing activities in contemporary business environments.
Predictive Analytics for Business (elective unit BA/BSc course)
This unit introduces predictive modelling and explains its application in business decisions. It focusses on a set of statistical techniques including regression modelling, cluster analysis and survival analysis, using predominantly using Excel and R.
Business Seminar 4: Strategy & Decision Making
This unit provides knowledge about strategic Decision Making for Management and will enable you to transform decision making into a smart and insightful process, providing a robust framework of effective and replicable solutions for better decisions and awareness of decision traps, as well as learning how to assess and choose high-value strategic options under the current climate of enormous uncertainty.
Business Bootcamp 6: Developing Enterprise
This unit will provide you with the opportunity to develop your creative thinking skills in a collaborative environment, bringing greater understanding to how those ideas may develop and transform through product or enterprise development.
Degree Project
In this final unit, you will apply all the learning throughout years 1,2 and 3 to create a distinctive piece of work for your degree project. Your final portfolio will implement a series of outcomes that evaluates and analyses the ideation of your concept.
This course offers the opportunity to study abroad for part of your second year. To find out more about studying abroad as part of your course please see the Study Abroad section:
Tuition fees
The course fees per year for 2021 entry are:
- UK students - £9,250
- EU students - £9,250 (see fee discount information)
- International students - £16,950 (standard fee)
- International students - £16,270 (full early payment fee)
If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.
The course fees for 2022 entry will be available here shortly.
Additional course costs
In addition to the tuition fees please see the additional course costs for 2021 entry. The details for 2022 entry will be available here in due course.
Further information
Find out more about our course fees and any financial support you may be entitled to:
These fees are correct for the stated academic year only. Costs may increase each year during a student’s period of continued registration on course in line with inflation (subject to any maximum regulated tuition fee limit). Any adjustment for continuing students will be at or below the RPI-X forecast rate.
Course specifications
Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.
Facilities
Fashion Branding & Communication students have a dedicated course studio and study space, access to campus print making workshops with dedicated technical support, campus photographic studios with lighting rigs, green screen lighting set up and digital media suites equipped with Macs and PCs, programmed with specialist design software. Students also have access to screen printing and bookbinding facilities, together with wood workshops for set building.
Fashion Branding & Communication studios, UCA Epsom
Photography studio, UCA Epsom
Print studios, UCA Epsom
Digital media suite, UCA Epsom
Course connections
This course is highly regarded in the fashion world, and we have forged many strong industry connections, including:
- Nike
- Swarovski
- CROWTHER/PLANT
- Good Ordering
- Lazy Oaf
- Patternity
- K-Swiss
- LSN Global
- BERTHOLD
- The Future Laboratory
- BBH
- WGSN
- A.P
- Paul Smith.
Visiting professionals
We host a number of visiting lecturers, including:
- Laura Vent – art director
- Susannah Jones - PR expert
- Nick Maroudias - photographer
- Cian McConn – artist
- Mark Wells – designer
- Louise Naunton Morgan – artist
- Mark Thomson – art director
- Chris Colville-Walker – art director
- Jason Hughes – fashion editor
- Anna Lomax - set designer
- Sophie Stephens - illustrator
- Willem Jaspert – photographer
- Carolina Daher – art director
- Jacqui Ma – trends researcher
- Ruth Marshall-Johnson – trends researcher
- Simone Konu – stylist
- Katja Mayer - photographer
- Ivana Bobic – director
- Greta Ilieva – photographer.
Our graduates have secured many rewarding career positions throughout the fashion industry, for example as:
- Fashion editor
- Showroom manager
- Art director
- PA to artistic director
- Press officer
- Set designer
- Artist
- Editorial assistant
- Trend researcher
- Producer
- Prop assistant
- Researcher
- Illustrator
- Filmmaker
- Film editor
- Graphic designer
Our graduates have progressed these roles at the following companies, to name but a few:
- ASOS
- Celine
- Paul Smith
- GQ Style
- Margaret Howell
- L’Oreal
- Benefit
- Asprey
- Aromatherapy Associates
- Farfetch
- Porter
- Oki-Ni
- Burberry
- Chanel
- Dazed & Confused
- Artistry
- A.P
- Alexander McQueen
- Fashion East
- Juergen Teller
- Katie Shillingford
- Benjamin Bruno
- Storm Models
- The British Fashion Council.
Your training on this course will prepare you for a wide range of postgraduate courses. We offer postgraduate opportunities in our Business School and we will help you find the correct course for you and support you in your application should further study be for you.
Visit our 2021 grad show site to see the incredible work created by our graduating students
Visit the 2021 Gradshow
"The tutors helped guide me through my creative thoughts and turn them into processes that I then could take into the real world. They were good at helping me understand the importance of prioritising and finding a balance, which I still try and use"
Entry requirements
The standard entry requirements* for this course are:
One of the following:
- 112 new UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
- Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
- Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
- Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
- 112 new UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
- 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.
And four GCSE passes at grade A*-C and/or grade 4-9 including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).
Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.
*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades - in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.
To view the equivalent entry requirements for your country please select it in the list below.
Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?
You may be able to enter the course through the following entry courses:
Pre-sessional English courses in the UK or China
This course doesn’t require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Offer Holder Webinar where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. We welcome students with a broad range of A-level subjects, as well as students with appropriate Art & Design Foundations or BTEC/UALAB diplomas which allow you to demonstrate your ability to research, evaluate and produce creative solutions.
Apply now
UK applications
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Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:
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Apply for full-time study - starting September 2022:
International & EU applications
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Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:
-
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2022:
When to apply:
We are still accepting applications for 2021 entry - get your application in now.
If applying directly to us, you can apply throughout the year but we recommend you apply as early as possible so you have time to arrange accommodation and visas.
For more information visit our how to apply pages
UK Applications
-
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:
-
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2022:
International Applications
-
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:
-
Apply for full-time study - starting September 2022:
When to apply:
We are still accepting applications for 2021 entry - get your application in now.
If applying directly to us, you can apply throughout the year but we recommend you apply as early as possible so you have time to arrange accommodation and visas.
For more information visit our how to apply pages
Get in touch