BACHELOR OF DESIGN /
CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING
CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING OVERVIEW
The Bachelor of Design in Creative Direction & Styling is a degree unlike any other in Australia, built for those who want to be at the forefront of the fashion, design and media industries. It gives you the skills and confidence to shape the future of styling, editorial, beauty, visual merchandising, photography, PR, events and interiors. Whether you dream of being a Creative Director, creating magazine editorials, orchestrating immersive retail displays or leading a social media campaign, this course equips you to direct images and lead creative outcomes across print, digital and moving image.
Underpinned by strong foundations in graphic design, photography and visual storytelling, the program is highly versatile, preparing you to move confidently across today's multi-disciplinary creative industry.
WHY STUDY CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING AT WHITEHOUSE
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Through hands-on projects across fashion, beauty, food, events and interiors, you'll develop both the creative and commercial skills the industry demands:
- Fashion, beauty, food, personal, event and interior styling
- Photography and image direction
- Magazine and editorial
- Visual merchandising and brand strategy
- PR, communications and social media
- Content creation and graphic design
- Colour, print, and the elements and principles of design
- Business skills including copywriting, PR management, business planning, time and budget management
WHAT YOU'LL GRADUATE WITH
By the end of the degree you'll have:
- A professional design portfolio demonstrating your work across fashion, food, events and interiors
- The ability to reinvent and redefine image across a variety of industries
- A professionally developed personal design philosophy and creative vision
- Experience collaborating on team-based creative projects and directing innovative design outcomes
- A strategic, forward-thinking approach to assessing and elevating brands and clients
The Bachelor of Design specialising in Creative Direction & Styling comprises 18 core subjects (Design Contexts, Digital Design + Illustration for Design) and 12 specialisation subjects (Styling Design + Styling Workshops), at a full-time study load this is delivered across 6 trimesters (2 years). To be awarded the Bachelor of Design, candidates must accrue an aggregate of 288 credit points, including satisfactory completion of all subjects.
The course is offered both full-time and part-time. At a full-time study load, students complete the degree in two years, undertaking five subjects each trimester as follows:
DESIGN CORE SUBJECTS
|:----|:----|:----|:----|
|DC1 to DC6|Design Contexts 1 to 6|Builds students' understanding of the cultural, historical and sustainable contexts that frame contemporary design, revealing the broader relationships between styling practice and the history and culture of design, art and the marketplace. In the second year, the subject evolves into design in business, marketing and professional contexts.|6/36|
|DD1 to DD6|Digital Design 1 to 6|Develops the skills to create professional visual images and a design portfolio for both print and digital. Students use the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, including Photoshop, Lightroom and InDesign, to describe, develop and market their projects, mastering how digital media produces effective, meaningful communication.|6/36|
|ID1 to ID6|Design Illustration 1 to 6|Builds the knowledge and skills to create visual images across a variety of illustrative media and styles in support of design projects. Students explore hand and digital illustration to communicate design outcomes, developing a visual language that transcends words and equips graduates to work on a global scale.|6/36|
STYLING SPECIALISATION SUBJECTS
|:----|:----|:----|:----|
|SD1 to SD6|Styling Design 1 to 6|Supports students' investigation of specialised design innovation across fashion, interiors and creative direction, exploring the processes, technologies and materials behind sustainable and responsible outcomes. Students are tasked with solving real design problems and formulating original creative ideas, from trend forecasting and concept development through to sourcing and creative direction.|6/36|
|SW1 to SW6|Styling Workshop 1 to 6|Each trimester integrates and applies learning from every other subject into a major industry-style project, developing both creativity and discipline-specific technical practice. Projects progress from visual merchandising and fashion styling through editorial, food and interior styling to event design, culminating in a signature project and graduate exhibition. See The Projects tab for more detail.|24/144|
The Industry-Focused Projects You'll Learn
In this accelerated two-year degree, you'll complete six industry-focused projects in the workshop subjects that mirror the real briefs faced by today's leading creative directors and stylists. Each trimester you're given a client, a concept and an industry challenge to solve, spanning fashion, photography, content creation, visual storytelling, food styling and event design. Working alongside your teachers and collaborators, you'll push your creativity further than you thought possible and graduate with an industry-ready portfolio.
Trimester One — Luxury Brand Storytelling & Visual Merchandising
Client: Hermès. You'll begin by learning to craft stories through space and product presentation, reimagining Hermès' world-renowned window displays. Over ten weeks you'll design, prototype and execute a visual merchandising concept that sells not just a product but a brand narrative, exploring spatial storytelling, set design, colour psychology, installation and photography to create a commercial, retail-ready display that communicates luxury in every detail.
Trimester Two — Visual Communication & Brand Content
This trimester explores visual communication as a powerful engagement tool for luxury brands. Your brief: create a utility-meets-luxe editorial story. You'll conceptualise and style a customised fashion garment for a high-end shoot, working across photography, casting, profiles and the art of reviewing collections. Alongside your design teachers, you'll create striking visual content and learn how creative direction and content creation drive storytelling across campaigns, editorials and digital platforms.
Trimester Three — Mish-Mash Clash Magazine Editorials
Client: a Milan-based Italian retailer. Here you'll embrace bold experimentation with colour, print, styling and photography, producing a mini-magazine that blends fashion-forward imagery with innovative editorial storytelling. You'll direct beauty shoots, conceptualise high-end fashion spreads and learn to shape editorial imagery into cohesive brand stories. The challenge: orchestrating clash into cohesion, ensuring every page carries design impact with commercial credibility.
Trimester Four — Food Styling & Design for Photography
This trimester expands your creative scope into the lifestyle and luxury sectors. You'll study responsible consumption, food styling and interior storytelling, and explore what it means to be the kind of photographer, videographer and stylist you'd find at a studio like The Artist Group in Sydney. Your project: develop and shoot a high-end food story for a luxury brand, balancing sustainability, artistry and commercial impact. This is where you hone the skills to direct talent and produce imagery of uncompromising quality.
Trimester Five — Events, Pop-Ups & Identity
The focus shifts to event design and brand activations. Your brief is to plan and visualise a pop-up shop or activation for a leading brand, exploring event PR, communication strategies, collateral design and 3D execution through SketchUp. In the second half of the trimester you'll enter Formulae, a Whitehouse exclusive, where an intensive exploration of your personal design identity begins to shape the creative philosophy that will anchor your graduate project.
Trimester Six — Signature Graduate Project
This is the launchpad into your career: a signature project that defines you as a creative director and stylist. You'll choose your specialisation, whether editorial photography and content creation, luxury food and lifestyle styling, social media campaigns for brands, or immersive event design, and translate your passion into a professional body of work. You'll showcase your identity through a fully realised graduate project, presented at our annual Graduate Exhibition and Fashion Runway, the ultimate industry debut for your brand.
Creative Direction & Styling is one of the most versatile qualifications in the design industry. Because the degree spans fashion, editorial, food, interiors and events, our graduates aren't trained for a single job. They're equipped to direct images and lead creative outcomes across multiple industries, and to move between them as their careers grow.
GRADUATES GO ON TO WORK AS
Styling and creative direction
Stylist · Creative Director · Art Director · Event Stylist · Wedding Stylist
Editorial and media
Fashion Editor · Style Journalist · Magazine / Publication Editor · Blog Director
Brand, retail and commercial
Visual Merchandiser · Fashion Buyer · Trend Forecaster · Brand Strategist
Image and content
Photographer · Content Creator · Digital Imaging Specialist · Illustrator
Whatever direction you take, you'll graduate with a professional portfolio and the industry-ready skills to back it, from concept and creative direction through to production and delivery.
FEATURED ALUMNI
With purpose-built design campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Whitehouse students work within professional-standard environments designed around the way the industry actually operates. Not lecture halls, but studios, workshops and resources you'll use in your specialisation every week.
Professional photography studios
Our fully-equipped photography studios put professional lighting, backdrops and shooting setups at your disposal, so the images you conceptualise in class are the images you produce, direct and refine to a portfolio standard.
Campus-specific benefits
At the Sydney campus, students have rare access to one of Australia's most significant design archives, including original pieces from Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Sacai. It's a hands-on resource for studying construction, detail and the language of luxury up close.
Each campus offers its own distinct student environment, including a rooftop student area in Melbourne and a student pool area in Brisbane.
Adobe Creative Cloud suite
Every student receives free access to the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite, giving you the same tools used across professional styling, editorial and creative direction. From week one you'll work in Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign and Illustrator.
Industry partnerships and sourcing network
Styling and creative direction happen through relationships, and Whitehouse connects students to the network professionals rely on. Across your projects you'll engage with industry suppliers, prop houses and hire companies, fabric and materials specialists, showrooms and brand partners, learning how to source, negotiate and pull together everything a shoot or campaign demands. Access to modelling agencies and industry specialists means the briefs you work on mirror real production conditions, so you graduate already knowing how to build and manage the collaborations behind a professional creative outcome.
Research services
Creative Direction & Styling students draw on industry-grade trend-forecasting services and a specialist design library, developing the research rigour behind every strong creative decision, from mood and colour direction to sourcing and concept.
Whitehouse continually updates and expands its resources to ensure every student has extensive design research support throughout their degree.
DOMESTIC FEES
All Design courses are FEE-HELP eligible for domestic students. No upfront payment for tuition fees needed if eligible.
|:----|:----|
|Trimester Tuition Fee (full-time study)|$14,610|
|Indicative Average Unit Fee (5 units)|$2,922|
Fees exclude course materials.
INTERNATIONAL FEES
See International section for information on international fees.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply for the Bachelor of Design with specialisation in Creative Direction & Styling, submit a direct application through the Whitehouse Institute of Design website.
Whitehouse has no application fees.
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Domestic
* **Academic:** Completion of year 12 or equivalent
* **Design Meeting:** All applicants attend a Design Meeting
* **Portfolio:** All applicants provide a portfolio
See link below for full entry requirements.
INTERNATIONAL
In addition to standard entry requirements, international students must have a minimum level of English language skills as well as a valid and appropriate visa for studying in Australia. See link below for full entry requirements.
IMPORTANT DATES
Applications for Whitehouse's Bachelor of Design with specialisation in Creative Direction & Styling are open year-round, with three main intakes each year - February, June and September. Applications typically open within 6 to 12 months of the intake commencing. We recommend applying early to secure your preferred campus and start date.
There's a lot of overlap between our Digital Design subjects and graphic design. The Digital Design subject is best described as a graphic design course within your degree. You'll develop core graphic design principles and skills using the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, including Photoshop, Lightroom and InDesign, applied to photography, editorial layout, digital imaging and portfolio creation. The difference is context: rather than studying graphic design in isolation, you'll apply these skills directly to your styling and creative direction projects, learning how to describe, develop and market your creative work across both print and digital formats.
The creative portfolio is a selection of your best work, which demonstrates your creative potential. A portfolio usually consists of between 6-8 examples, and can use a variety of mediums which may include illustration, digital design, photography, film, creative writing, textile design, fine artworks and other evidence as appropriate to your chosen specialisation. Whitehouse uses your portfolio to assess your creative potential for success in the Bachelor of Design. We look at how your work demonstrates:
- An understanding of design, a connection with the current design industry and innovation in your creative thinking.
- A desire to learn and the ability to investigate and develop ideas independently.
If you do not have a Creative Portfolio, or have questions about yours, call us on 1300 551 433 or email study@whitehouse-design.edu.au to talk to us.
Whitehouse offers short workshops throughout the year, which assist students and applicants with their portfolio development. We recommend anyone considering a career in design or applying for the Bachelor of Design, to attend a workshop with us.
Details of all of Whitehouse's Workshops can be found here:
To assist you in your tertiary level design studies, recommended year 11 and 12 subjects include: Design & Technology, Visual Arts, Visual Communication, Textiles & Design, Modern History or Ancient History.
Whitehouse does not have any compulsory pre-requisite subjects.
Whitehouse offers a Certificate III in Design Fundamentals (VET for Secondary School Students) course, which offers its graduates direct entry into the Bachelor of Design at Whitehouse. Students can take this course in Year 10, 11 or 12 of High School.
Absolutely, we are here to help. We recommend meeting with us, giving us a call or coming in for a tour. You can do any of those by clicking on the links below.
Call now 1300 551 433
Email us study@whitehouse-design.edu.au
All Whitehouse courses now have no ATAR requirement as an ATAR does not assess how well a student will succeed creatively.
If you have been made an offer of enrolment but you are not quite ready to commence study, you may defer commencement of studies until the next intake without the need to reapply. For more information on application, enrolment or deferral, you can discuss your options with Admissions.
ACADEMIC CREDIT / RECOGNITION OF PRIOR LEARNING (RPL)
Credits for single subjects may be awarded to accredited subjects previously undertaken at another education provider and/or relevant industry experience.
To apply for Academic Credit:
- Download and complete the Application for Academic Credit
- Fill in the form including all subject titles and descriptions of the units for which you are applying for RPL
- Submit completed form with supporting documentation and evidence to Whitehouse Institute
ADVANCED STANDING
Advanced Standing may be awarded to students who have completed courses in a similar field of study. Depending on the level of study completed, you may be eligible to receive direct articulation into study period two, three or four of the Bachelor of Design. Download or request the Application for Direct Entry - submit with your current/previous qualification and transcript of academic results. If advanced standing is awarded the length of your study may be reduced.
For more information on Academic Credit and Advanced Standing, simply contact Whitehouse Admissions or discuss during your Design Meeting.