Course feature: Starting Fashion Illustration
- Written bySimran Sanghavi
- Published date 19 March 2024
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The Starting Fashion Illustration Online Short Course is one of the first self-paced courses offered by UAL Short Courses. Designed for beginners, illustrators, designers or creatives with an interest in fashion, this course explores the entire creative process—from inspiration to final designs.
Our self-paced courses are designed to offer flexibility to its fullest in terms of when, where and how you choose to take your course. This is achieved through a combination of pre-recorded sessions to follow at your own pace, and practical exercises to develop your skills.
Covering both men's and women's fashion, the Starting Fashion Illustration Short Course explores various mediums of illustrations, focuses on drawing inspiration from your favourite illustrators, finding your unique style and creating a range of final illustrated designs.
To find out more, we caught up with the course tutor, René de Lange, a seasoned artist with an MA from the Royal College of Art and over twelve years of experience as a Print Designer for renowned companies. René recently launched her homeware brand, contributing to Artists’ open Houses and community projects.
Read on to see what René had to say about the course.
What is the main objective of the course and who is the intended audience?
“This course is meant to build your confidence slowly whether you’re an existing designer, a student, an illustrator or just interested in fashion illustration. We will explore mark making, drawing, experimentation, looking at designers that inspire you, learning about the body and then building up to using things like collage, depicting textiles and more. By the end, you should be able to build your own fashion range – whether that is on paper or if you decide to make the clothes themselves.”
How is the course structured and what key topics are covered?
“The whole course is structured into 6 topics. We start off with loosening up, experimenting with new techniques, new materials, letting go of old habits, and being brave. Then we look at studying the body and how to use these newfound techniques to depict the body in an interesting way. Then we’ll be looking at textiles and how to depict them and how to use colour to really make an impact with your fashion illustrations. We also look at Mono printing which is a really loose and fast way of getting beautiful fashion illustrations that become your own.
Eventually, we move on to collage, using existing and new elements, really letting go, letting loose, a free and exciting way to create your own fashion illustrations that depict your authentic style. We end the course with range building. So where you start to look at everything you’ve done in a week and put them together to start building your own fashion range and also start thinking about your marketing, branding, styling, and names for your brand.”
How does the course encourage authenticity in fashion illustration, and in what ways does it help participants find their unique style?
“The course places a strong emphasis on authenticity by encouraging students to let go of old habits and be brave in their exploration. So really find your way of depicting fashion illustration. We will look at other designers you admire, find their strengths and turn them into your strengths.”
What are some possible outcomes of the course?
“I have students who come up with brilliant business ideas just from giving themselves space and time to really explore their fashion illustrations. You might end up with an accessories line after this or you might end up selling your fashion illustrations, or you might end up designing and making a beautiful range of fashion garments from your ideas.”
How does the course prepare participants for potential careers in the fashion industry?
“In the industry, it’s really important to have fashion illustration skills as a communication skill because that’s your ‘creative voice’. For example, in the context of a buyer meeting, to be able to visually communicate the dress you’d like to sell with some really quick sketches is very powerful. You can really build that confidence during the course so you can be confident in the industry too.”
Ready to have a go yourself, at your own pace? Explore the full list of self-paced courses covering topics such as Graphic Design, Fashion Design, Fashion Illustration and Digital Marketing.
Check out our upcoming short courses to find out what's coming up.
