Breaking into fashion

MOORE COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN

A student at Moore performs hands-on work.

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Interior design chances

Prefer to dress up your home? Moore also offers a certificate in Interior Design Studies.

The one-year, part-time program attracts both working designers who want to brush up on their skills and career-changers looking to break into the design world. Courses cover the principles of design, color, lighting, composition and drawing, plus the history of furniture and the decorative arts. One course, “CAD for drafting,” teaches students how to use computer-aided drafting techniques to prepare designs for presentation and communicate their ideas to clients.

“Interior design includes the entire interior environment, for a home or commercial space. It’s not just the surface decoration, like ‘What lamp should we get?’” –Judy Woodworth, Moore College of Art & Design

Published: September 28, 2010 8:52 p.m.

Last modified: September 28, 2010 8:56 p.m.

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Pattern makers, sample makers, spec writers and illustrators in the fashion industry are all being replaced by one role: the technical designer.

“The whole industry has changed dramatically. The production of fashion has become really technical,” says Judy Woodworth, co-director for continuing education at Moore College of Art & Design. “Computer savviness is critical to the whole process now.”

The certificate program for fashion studies at Moore teaches those with a passion for fashion how to become technical designers and “turn a fashion designer’s concept into reality,” Woodworth says.

Courses focus on computer programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and CAD — plus technical drawing, pattern making and fashion history. Students typically take one class per quarter, earning the certificate in two years, or make it a one-year program with two classes a quarter. Each class meets one night a week.

Aspiring technical designers who want the certificate have to take all of the courses for credit, which means they’ll be graded and receive a transcript. Another option is to pick and chose individual courses to audit — that comes with a 30 percent discount in tuition, but no grade or credit.

Unlike Moore’s undergraduate programs, the fashion studies program is open to both men and women.

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