About the Certificate
Bring your designs to life from concept to reality by developing stylistic approaches, production techniques, digital tools, and the essential skills required for success in today’s fashion design industry. Fashion design can be applied to a variety of industries, including retail, theater, film, textile design, and others. The Otis Extension Fashion Design Certificate Program is representative of the same professional industry standards as Otis’s own Fashion Design Department, a leading educational program nationwide.
After completing the Otis Extension certificate program, you will be prepared to begin a career or enhance your skills in the fashion industry as a fashion designer, assistant designer, or patternmaker. Learn from experienced professionals and artists, connect with a network of creatives, and receive career support, including career counseling, career assessment, internship advising, and employer networking opportunities. Ultimately, you will create a professional-quality portfolio demonstrating conceptual, design, and technical proficiency for entry-level positions in the fashion industry.
What You Will Learn
- Art and design fundamentals, including life drawing, composition, and color theory
- Relevant industry terminology, techniques, and best practices
- Crucial sewing, draping, and pattern making skills
- Fashion illustration, with and without a live model, for presentation
- Textile design and utilizing materials for best performance.
- How to design and market a fashion line
- Industry-standard tools, including Illustrator, Photoshop, and more
Prospective Student Resources
- Attend an Info Session for certificate details and a registration discount
- View a course planning document to learn more about course sequence and timelines
- Submit materials to waive a required course
- Review our policies and FAQs for answers to common questions, including refund schedules, information for international students, and details about various certificate processes
- Chat with us during drop-in hours: Wednesdays from 3:00-4:00 p.m. via Zoom
- Schedule an appointment with an Extension Advisor
- Email certificates@otis.edu with any questions
Program Costs
- Approximate Course Cost: $553*
- Total Number of Courses: 18
- Estimated Total Tuition: $9,954**
*Cost for an online course after certificate tuition discount. Upon submitting the
certificate application and fee, students qualify for a 15% tuition discount per course
at the time of enrollment.
**Cost after certificate tuition discount. Courses are individually priced. Tuition
and course fees are paid at the time of enrollment in each course. Total tuition is
not paid in advance or in a lump sum. Additional course fees or materials costs may
apply.
Eligibility and Requirements
Students must be 18+ years of age to enroll. No portfolio or prior experience is required.
Individuals interested in this certificate program can take up to two courses before committing to the program. Before beginning their third course, students are required to submit a Certificate Program Enrollment Application with a non-refundable $185 application fee.
Students are notified of their certificate application results three times per year according to the following dates:
- Between 12/11/2025 - 2/7/2026 for Spring 2026 start
- Between 4/16/2026 - 6/6/2026 for Summer 2026 start
- Between 8/6/2026 - 9/26/2026 for Fall 2026 start
Required Courses
What is good design? Line, space, balance, value, texture, perspective—these are just a few of the elements and principles that designers engage with to create strong design solutions. This course provides a thorough introduction to visual elements, language, and applications fundamental to 2-dimensional design. Through weekly assignments, students apply design principles using digital or traditional media. This course builds confidence in the design process for beginners and professionals by focusing on perception and thinking, historic and current references, and craftsmanship. Instruction includes design projects, online lectures, online discussion, process, and critique.
Color is emotional. A color resonates based on memory, cultural bias, and personal preference. Artists and designers alike communicate effectively through choice of hue, saturation, and value. In this course, knowledge and understanding of color are developed through weekly exercises and homework projects. Through lecture, demonstration, critique, and practical experience, students investigate color theory; fundamental elements, principles, and terminology; color systems, color modes; and more. Students develop an investigative process for problem-solving, revising, and inventing through the application of color as it exists in physical and digital worlds.
Deepen your understanding of color systems and their strategic applications across design disciplines. In this course, students expand beyond foundational principles to explore how color operates in professional contexts such as fashion, interiors, graphic design, gaming, product design, and branding. Through practical, software-integrated assignments and industry-specific critiques, students refine their palettes and develop advanced visual fluency with color. Artists and designers with foundational color theory knowledge are encouraged to enroll.
In this hands-on course, students develop digital design skills by integrating Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to render garments and create original textile designs. Students learn the fundamentals of technical packages and line plans and create a coordinated group of textile prints in various color ways before applying them to a mini fashion collection suitable for portfolio presentation. Emphasis is placed on industry-relevant techniques such as designing print patterns, building seamless repeats, recoloring, and generating multiple colorways. By the end of the course, students gain practical experience and digital fluency needed to contribute effectively to the fashion development process—from concept through production-ready documentation.
What’s the difference between pleating and ruching? Which fabrics are suitable for draping? In this course, students learn the basic principles of draping on the dress form, including style lines, fit, and balance. Studio instruction includes preparing muslin, marking, and truing finished bodices and skirts.
Want to draw, but the blank page scares you? Then start here. Through demonstration, class exercises, and critiques, students in this beginning course learn the elements of drawing and composition. Students create finished drawings with attention to line, shading, composition, perspective drawing, and positive versus negative space.
Explore design principles and construction techniques for the moderate price market. Students examine the unique challenges and opportunities presented by various materials, learning how fabric behavior influences design decisions, fit, and garment performance. Students are encouraged to create innovative designs while maintaining practical considerations such as cost, marketability, and production feasibility.
According to Vogue, fashion illustration is in style again—as an art form and an interpretation of fashion itself. Students in this course learn to make design sketches without a model, establishing properly proportioned elongated fashion figures in a variety of poses. Working from photo references, facial features, attitude, hands, and feet will be addressed. Design ideas are communicated through quick sketches called croquis, which is then developed into presentation drawings (and, yes, fashionable artwork).
Students draw from live models to develop an awareness of the proportions and movement of the elongated fashion figure. With ongoing weekly practice, students acquire their knowledge of anatomy and refine their ability to draw models in various poses, angles, and costumes. This course explores the visualization of various fabrics and garments on the figure.
Students learn to design and market their own fashion line while creating their own financial, marketing, and public relations plans. Course covers the business of fashion, from setting goals, researching niche markets, and evaluating demographics to deciding price point, targeting a market, creating mission statements, and developing your corporate identity.
Explore Final Project: Designing and Marketing a Fashion Line
To fully appreciate the role and purpose of clothing, it is vital to understand “costume” in an academic sense: the style of dress particular to a nation, period, or class. In this online course, students explore the history of costume from antiquity through to the twentieth century. Classes survey clothing styles and personal adornment as well as the aesthetic, functional, sociological, economic, and cultural factors that influence them.
Curious about the process of taking a unique apparel idea and developing it into reality? Explore designer approaches to research and development. Learn creative techniques including draping with fabric, pattern design development, and sewing through a variety of studio projects. Become adept in production terminology, proper techniques, and best practices, while developing your sewing skills.
Focusing on the world of fashion and fashion business, this course covers the research and inspiration process that leads to a collection within a given market. The course will also delve into the techniques used to convey design ideation and construction. It is designed to cover the entire fashion design process from start to finish with an emphasis on sketching to communicate individual design ideas and fabrication. Students will be encouraged to research markets within the fashion industry and find the space that they find most inspiring.
This introductory course explores various questions that lead towards individual exploration:
- Am I interested in high-end sportswear or mass-market street wear?
- How are the design processes, fabrications, and construction techniques different from active wear to evening wear? How are they similar?
- What constitutes good design?
Why draw from a photograph or magazine when you can draw from life itself? Observing and drawing the live model allows the artist to learn about proportions, foreshortening, light and shadow, and the fundamentals of drawing. This beginning/intermediate course places emphasis on the structure and proportion of the human form. Using a variety of drawing media, students are instructed in a gesture as well as long and short poses.
Students learn to flat pattern draft from sketches, using approved slopers. In today’s industry, this is the fastest and most commonly used method. Students begin with seamless blocks, draft the pattern on dotted paper, add seams, and then transfer to manila for a final hard paper pattern, including an appropriate pattern card. Assignments include sewing the finished pattern in muslin, checking the fit on the dress form and making corrections to the pattern. Mirroring industry techniques, students develop skills expected of a designer and/or a first-pattern patternmaker.
In sewing, a lot happens behind the seams—from using the right stitch for the job to pressing fabric. This course is an introduction to general sewing techniques. Students learn the theory of accurately sewing various parts of a garment together according to industry standards through assigned clothing projects.
Textile science plays a crucial role in planning for a successful fashion/surface design product. In this course, students study knit construction, its design possibilities, and how it affects the performance of the fabric and finished product. Students knit swatches using a variety of stitches, combining yarns and varying gauge. Topics include dyeing, printing and finishing processes which affect the aesthetic appeal of a product; functional finishes which enhance performance; and the environmental impact of various textile processes
Select Two of the Following Electives
Develop digital techniques used in the fashion industry for drawing digital flats (CAS’s). Through Adobe Illustrator, students learn technical skills in the newest Illustrator tools and functions, digital terminology, industry standards, and best practices. Techniques include developing brushes and symbol libraries; graphic styles; and a custom start file for speed, efficiency, and consistency. This course is recommended for anyone who wants to learn or update their Adobe Illustrator skills to meet the current standards used in the fashion industry.
Learn Adobe Photoshop skills used in the Fashion Industry to create mood boards, render fashion illustrations, create custom brushes, add fabrics and textures, and produce textile designs. Students learn technical skills using the newest Photoshop tools and functions, digital terminology, industry standards, and best practices. They develop their own brush and pattern libraries, create mood boards, design textiles and render fashion illustrations with digitally draped fabric. This course is recommended for anyone who wants to learn or update their Adobe Photoshop skills to meet the current standards used in the fashion industry. No prior knowledge is needed for this course.
In the world of fashion design there are few garments that evoke a sense of wonder quite like the evening gown. Some of the most striking gowns throughout history owe their silhouettes to foundations that are never actually meant to be seen. Corsetry and under-pinnings have been used in costume and fashion in one form or another since the 1500s. Corsets not only manipulate the silhouette of the fashion body, but they also provide the foundation needed to create sculptural strapless confections. This course introduces you to skill building techniques for draping a corset, installing boning, draping shapes using a corset as a base, all culminating in a final consisting of a finished evening gown with a corseted foundation.
Whether your interest is in producing a billboard, brochure, or poster, you need to start with the basics and become familiar with the digital tools of the trade. This hands-on course introduces students to print-specific digital applications that are the industry standard for design professionals —Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, and Adobe InDesign.
Explore essential tools and methodologies in the first of three techniques-based surface design courses. Using principles of design, color theory, and marketability, students cover the entire design process from initial motif conception to tear sheet presentations with pattern repeats and mock-ups. Bespoke techniques and materials include watercolors, acrylics, block printing, cyanotype, photographic alteration, alcohol, and India inks, which are used to create designs. Students then digitize their artworks using the Adobe Suite and/or Procreate. Students create work with attention to product categories, copyright information, and effective surface marketing techniques.
This program requires two (2) elective courses. Students may select any of the following courses.
Note: Additional elective options may be available. Please consult your certificate advisor for guidance.