Build Practical Digital Skills for Today’s Fashion Industry
Expand your digital skills and strengthen your fashion design workflow with Otis College Extension’s fully online Digital Design Tools for Fashion Accelerated Certificate. This accelerated two-term certificate is designed for both emerging and experienced designers who are interested in building their core digital skills in tools such as Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop.
In this professionally-focused online program students learn how to move from sketching and concept development to digital flats, polished illustrations, and presentation-ready fashion designs.
About the Certificate
- Format: Fully online instruction
- Program Dates: Mid-September through the end of April
- Weekly Time Commitment per Course: Approximately three hours of in-class time and at least three hours of homework per week
- Tuition: $2,250
- Courses: Three courses
Program Overview
Digital tools are essential to how fashion designers sketch, refine, communicate, and present ideas. Otis College Extension’s Digital Design Tools for Fashion Accelerated Certificate helps students build practical skills across three core industry platforms: Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop.
The curriculum guides students through creative workflows, from rough sketches and early concepts to digital flats and polished renderings. Students will learn not only how to use these tools, but how to apply them with clarity, creativity, and efficiency. This certificate is ideal for designers who want to strengthen their technical foundation, improve their visual communication skills, and build a more professional digital workflow.
Why Enroll in the Digital Design Tools for Fashion Certificate?
Otis College has a long-standing legacy of fostering emerging fashion talent through focused design education, creative practice, and professional preparation. This certificate builds on the expertise of Otis College’s renowned Fashion Design Department while offering a flexible, career-focused pathway through Otis College Extension.
Students come away with practical, job-ready digital skills while developing efficient workflows supported by personalized tools, templates, and a stronger design vocabulary. The program emphasizes both creativity and industry standards, helping students understand how digital tools can support concept development, technical design, fashion illustration, and professional presentation.
What You’ll Learn
Use Procreate to create digital fashion sketches, visualize design ideas, explore silhouettes, and communicate design decisions efficiently.
Learn core Adobe Illustrator techniques used to create technically accurate fashion flats. Students will also develop more efficient workflows using personalized libraries of brushes, symbols, templates, graphic styles, stitch lines, zipper icons, and other reusable design elements.
Use Adobe Photoshop to communicate ideas clearly and efficiently. Students will learn how to convert fashion sketches into polished digital illustrations with accurate draping, seamless patterns, shading, and presentation-ready visual detail.
Complete Three Online Courses Over Two Terms
Explore one of the most prominent tools used in digital fashion illustration. Procreate is an industry-standard software program used to quickly create comprehensive illustrations for design communication, such as design sketches, mood boards, and technical flats. In this course, students learn the fundamentals of Procreate and gain a comprehensive understanding of its application in a framework relevant to the Fashion industry. Beyond technical proficiency, students also learn illustrative techniques to create a true connection between hand-drawn ideation and digital illustration. Using Procreate tools, students develop a design concept into a set of digital sketches.
Develop industry-relevant digital techniques used for drawing digital flats (CAD’s) for fashion designs. Using Adobe Illustrator, students acquire technical skills using industry-standard tools and functions, digital terminology, and an understanding of workflow best practices. Techniques include producing technically accurate CADs with efficiency and consistency; creating brushes and symbol libraries; developing graphic styles; and creating a custom start file. Using Illustrator tools, students develop a set of digital flats demonstrating their understanding of technical design and construction. This course prepares students with the critical skills used by current fashion designers and design practices used in the fashion industry.
Learn Adobe Photoshop skills used in today’s fashion design industry workflows. Students create mood boards, render fashion illustrations, create custom brushes, add fabrics and textures, and produce textile designs. Using industry-standard program tools and functions, digital terminology, and best practices, students develop essential technical skills. They develop their own brush and pattern libraries, create mood boards, design textiles, and render fashion illustrations with digitally draped fabric. Using Photoshop’s design tools, students produce a completed set of digitally rendered illustrations based on technical flats created in Adobe Illustrator Techniques for Fashion. This course prepares students with the critical skills needed for current Photoshop design practices used in the fashion industry.
Who Should Enroll
This certificate is designed for students and professionals who want to strengthen the digital skills used across today’s fashion industry. The program is a great fit for:
- Industry professionals interested in upskilling with new digital tools
- Emerging fashion designers building their technical and creative foundation
- Recent graduates looking to stand out as they enter the workforce
- Freelance designers who want to improve their digital workflow
- Graphic designers interested in fashion design
Learn Career-Relevant Skills
The Digital Design Tools for Fashion Certificate helps students build skills that support entry-level to early-career creative and technical roles across fashion design, apparel development, and visual communication. This certificate may support students interested in roles including :
- Assistant or Junior Fashion Designer
- Assistant or Technical Designer
- Assistant Apparel Developer or Coordinator
- Fashion Illustrator or Design Visualizer
- Design Assistant for fashion or accessories
- Freelance Fashion Designer or Illustrator
- Industry Internships
Faculty Expertise
Students learn from faculty with expertise across fashion design, illustration, Adobe tools, textile design, and professional creative practice.
Robin Schneider is known for her expertise in Adobe tools for fashion. She has created multiple Illustrator and Photoshop for Fashion courses on LinkedIn Learning and has trained designers at companies including Belk, Juicy Couture, and Liz Claiborne. She is also the co-owner of Belden Schneider Studio, a Los Angeles-based textile print design studio specializing in repeats, color reduction, and recoloring. Her Adobe for Fashion: Illustrator textbook is used at fashion schools around the world, and she is currently developing additional Photoshop resources for fashion and textile design.
Daniel Paige Toney is a designer, illustrator, and fashion historian with a multidisciplinary background in graphic design, illustration, painting, and fashion design. He has worked with designers and stylists in Los Angeles, including Michael Costello and B. Akerlund, and has had the opportunity to sketch and design for internationally recognized fashion houses including Dolce & Gabbana, Balmain, and Manish Arora. At Otis College of Art and Design, Daniel has taught Fashion Illustration, Fashion Design, Digital Design for Fashion, and Studio and Construction for Fashion in the Summer of Art program.
Application Requirements
- Students must be 18+ years of age to enroll.
- Students should have working knowledge of fashion design and garment construction before applying. Admission requirements may be satisfied through previous coursework at Otis or another institution, a portfolio, or demonstrable professional experience.
- Students must submit transcripts or work samples to enroll.
Program Pricing
- Students Paying Up Front
- Tuition: $2,250 for three courses
- Application Fee: $185
- Total Price: $2,435
- Students Paying by Course
- Standalone Course Tuition: $800
- Application Fee: $185
- Total Price: $2,585
- Additional Costs:
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Additional Costs: $12.99 one-time cost for the Procreate Application. $19.99 monthly cost for Adobe Creative Cloud (using student discount).
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Available Discounts
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Certificate students also enrolled in an career prep certificate: 15% discount (excludes application fee)
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Otis Extension and Otis BFA alumni: 10% discount (excludes application fee)