Interior Design & Styling (Extended Degree)
Entry requirements
UCAS Tariff
Although many of our students do come in with top grades and high UCAS points, these aren’t necessarily essential for entry. We typically ask for a minimum of 104 UCAS points, but we understand that talented artists, designers and makers can have a wide range of relevant strengths and skills beyond formal qualifications. We’re just as interested in exploring your portfolio as we are in seeing your grades.
You may also need to…
Present a portfolio
About this course
**Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. Formerly known as Plymouth College of Art, we were granted full university title in Spring 2022. We are now the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience.**
If you want to pursue a creative degree at Arts University Plymouth but feel you have yet to acquire the experience and range of skills necessary, our Extended BA course will prepare you for entry to one of our BA (Hons) undergraduate courses. This four-year route offers an exploratory year, developing your insight into a range of art, design and media skills and approaches, before focusing on your Interior Design & Styling degree.
**This course is one of a rare few in the UK devised to develop your skills in interior design and styling, emphasising the impact of colour, texture, materials, surface and ambience in a range of environments. We will ensure you enter industry as a well-rounded interiors specialist, ready to work on projects from super yachts to magazine photoshoots.**
Our Interior Design & Styling degree generates inspired graduates, who are both visually intelligent and well acquainted with technical drawing packages. As it cuts across a range of interior disciplines, here you’ll gain a great introduction to designing interiors for a variety of environments – from residential and commercial spaces to the public realm and even transport.
Your studies will place special emphasis on trends, colour, surface, decoration and ambience in a range of interior contexts, both public and private. You’ll develop your own distinct taste in style curation, exploring lighting, furnishing, materiality and textural finishes to make your design concepts a reality.
Through a variety of projects, which could range from hospitality design or styling for editorial to designing yachts or aeroplanes, you’ll find your own interior specialism. You’ll also develop a keen understanding of consumer trends and learn how to design for different levels of the market, whilst refining your presentation skills. Specialist modules cover interior project management, history of design, event planning and live design briefs. Hard skills that you will develop include technical drawing, visualisation, editorial photography and the use of CAD software.
You will work in dedicated design studios, with skilled technical support staff. You will have access to our Fab Lab for digital prototyping, as well as wood, metal and glass workshops, digital print facilities, AutoCAD design software and design intelligence facilities. Our extensive photographic resources include large-format scanners as well as an infinity cove – a seamless curved studio with a solid backdrop for commercial-standard photography.
On this course you’ll be taught by industry-active academics and highly specialised technicians who are responsible for some of the world’s most impressive design and styling choices in hotels, restaurants and private residences. Boasting a combined client list
that includes the National Trust, the BBC, Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Sheraton, as well as multimillion-pound commissions in New York and Barbados, our Interior Design & Styling team are well connected and at the forefront of their field.
This course places a high value on both local and international industry connections, encouraging students to attend the London Design Fair, Tate Modern, and the Design Museum – alongside group visits to interiors shows such as Maison&Objet in Paris and imm cologne.
Modules
The first year of an Extended Degree is not a qualification in its own right, but when you successfully complete it you are guaranteed a place on our full undergraduate programme.
You’ll develop confidence in your use of drawing, visual research, contextual studies, digital imaging and design methods, and you’ll have the chance to experiment with a range of materials, equipment, processes and software.
As the year goes by you’ll specialise in your chosen undergraduate subject (illustration, graphic design, fine art, etc.), helping you to become a confident, independent and creative artist, designer or maker.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
Arts University Plymouth
Arts, Design and Media
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Design studies
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
We don't have more detailed stats to show you in relation to this subject area at this university but read about typical employment outcomes and prospects for graduates of this subject below.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Design studies
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£13k
£16k
£18k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Explore these similar courses...
This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Course location and department:
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here