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e-fashion Pilot Testing Somerset College
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• University of Plymouth Colleges Somerset
• BA (Hons) Degree Programmes
• Fashion Design
• Fashion Textiles
• Surface Design
• Interior Textiles
• Interior Textiles and Surface Design (Combined
  Award)

All Degree pathways include the use of new
technology. We use design software to produce
fashion illustrations, visuals for Surface Design
and Interior Textiles, online portfolios and
textile design. We also produce textiles using
new technology such as digital textile print,
digital embroidery and laser cutting.
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• Our Students Who do we teach?
• Students come from various sources
• National Diploma Foundation Studies
• A Levels
• National Diploma Textiles
• Mature Students from various backgrounds
• Foundation Degrees

We enrol approximately 60 students per
annum. Students have various amounts of
experience working with I.T The teaching of I.T
and Multimedia has to be delivered in a way that
is appropriate to all skills levels.
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• Teaching Demands and Time Constraints
• Because of student numbers and timetable
• issues there are a number of factors that can
• determine the quality of delivery
• Between 50 and 60 students all taught on 1 day.
• 4x groups of 15 students taught for 1.5 hrs per
  week only.
• Mixed ability groups, some with significant
  learning difficulties.
• Highly technical teaching that requires extensive
  preparation.
• Very individual creative outcomes required from
  each student.

The pilot testing of e-fashion has helped to
address some of these issues.
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• In the 1st year of study all
• students are taught to use
• the following software
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft FrontPage
• Because of the numerous
• creative possibilities when
• working with Photoshop we
• are able to teach multiple
• discipline groups.
• This means that initially
• everybody develops
• the necessary technical skills
• before working in a more

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• Subject Specific Requirements From Different
  Software
• As the students begin to work much more
• specifically in their subject areas the demands
• when working with I.T and Multimedia vary
  greatly
• Fashion Design - Adobe Illustrator for technical
  flats.
• Adobe Photoshop for general styling.
• Fashion Textiles - Adobe Illustrator for
  technical flats.
• Adobe Photoshop for digital textile design
• and general styling.
• Surface Design - Adobe Illustrator for concept
  visuals.
• Adobe Photoshop for digital textile design
• and general styling.
• Interior Textiles - Adobe Illustrator for concept
  visual
• Adobe Photoshop for digital textile design

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Subject Specific Work Generated with I.T and
Multimedia
Interior Visual, BA (Hons) Surface Design (Adobe
Illustrator)
Digital Textile Design, BA (Hons) Fashion
Textiles (Adobe Photoshop)
Concept Visual, BA (Hons) Surface Design (Adobe
Photoshop)
General Styling, BA (Hons) Fashion (Adobe
Photoshop)
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Teaching with e-fashion how was practice
enhanced? All students are encouraged to print
the tutorial PDF files that are stored on the
website and begin to create a technical
folder. This gives students effective material
to refer to between taught sessions. Referring
the students to the examples folder within the
website encourages consideration of what others
are producing in the different countries how
are different schools using IT skills to enhance
their work? Students are inspired to experiment
with other processes using the software
available. e-fashion management meetings and
workshops have given us an opportunity to start
to communicate with colleagues from Europe who
are teaching with the same technology. This has
encouraged Somerset College teaching staff to
consider other ways of combining traditional
studio practice with I.T
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.Teaching with e-fashion how was practice
enhanced? Within any typical year group there is
always a cohort of students with learning
difficulties, particularly Dyslexia. The usual
manuals that accompany such design software as
Adobe Photoshop tend to be overly wordy which
slows down some of our students learning
experience. Referring students to the video
tutorials on the e-fashion website particularly
in between the taught sessions gives students an
effective visual way of learning. Students are
also encouraged to regularly take screen shots
while they work, these are printed off and
students make notes and draw arrows on them to
remind themselves of how to navigate their way
through the software.
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Learning from e-fashion how was learning
experience enhanced? Students have described how
having on-line access to information between
taught sessions is one of the most productive
factors to e-fashion. Some of our taught
sessions are very technical and subject specific,
the e-fashion website may not enhance particular
lessons, however the website does contain enough
general information to serve as a reminder when
students work alone. The Students will produce
digital portfolios later in the year, they will
be referred to the website tutorials, again, to
remind them in between taught sessions how to
use PowerPoint effectively. Within the mixed
ability group some students have very little
experience of this presentation package while
others have a lot. The website will allow us to
give the less experienced students some support
whilst working with students that are ready to
be more creative.
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e-fashion in BA (Hons) Degrees, how does it fit
into our courses? Because of the mixed level of
skills and experience the students bring to our
BA (Hons) Degree courses e-fashion offers the
appropriate level of support to a large number
of our 1st year intake. We feel that e-fashion
covers the essential base skills needed to begin
to be organised and successful when working with
I.T and multimedia. One of the best examples of
this is the Digital Imaging tutorial

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Outputting Work with New Digital Technology
Digital Textile Print -
- Digital Embroidery
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.e-fashion in BA (Hons) Degrees, how does it fit
into our courses? As our textile and fashion
degree programmes use of new technology
increases so does the demand on the students
I.T and multimedia skills. A recent investment
in new technology that includes a large scale
digital textile printer, a digital embroidery
machine with specific software and a laser
cutter means it is now fundamentally important
that our students are competent in the use of
I.T Once competent there are endless creative
possibilities available using this textile
specific technology. e-fashion is proving to be
a valuable stepping stone towards helping our
students work successfully with new textiles
technology.
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e-fashion Pilot Testing Somerset College