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Every year, a large number of students get admission to design colleges in India due to the growth of career options in the field. Both fashion design and graphic design are popular design specialisations. Fashion designing and graphic designing are growing rapidly due to their high salaries, scope, and career opportunities. Though both belong to the stream of designing, they both have certain strict differences that students need to understand to make better decisions in their careers. Read the complete article by Careers360 to get a complete overview of fashion design and graphic design courses, popular entrance exams, and their career scope.
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Particulars | Fashion Design | Graphic Design |
Deals with | Garment production, retail, and fashion shows | Business cards, logo making, animation, and advertising campaigns |
Courses available | B.Des, M.Des. Diploma, B.Voc | B.Des, M.Des. Diploma, B.Voc |
Common Entrance | NIFT, Pearl Entrance Exam | UCEED, NID |
Fashion designing is a course/ profession that deals mainly with designing garments, accessories, and other things related to fashion. Fashion designers deal with runway shows, Bollywood celebrities, and retail markets.
On the other hand, graphic design is a course of professional pursuit by graphic designers who deal with designing logos, business cards, website elements, etc., for a company. They convey messages easily through visuals through a design process. Graphic designers need to work on advertising campaigns, designing the logo, and improving the presence of the company online. The demand for both courses has been burgeoning because of the growing internet culture, which has opened up a wide range of jobs in these professions.
Most colleges for the intake into the course make the students appear for an entrance exam that is designed to test the students' design aptitude and other skills required for the course. The top entrance exams for both courses are listed below:
NIFT entrance exam: NIFT, the National Institute of Fashion Technology, is a popular choice for students interested in pursuing a career in fashion design. The National Testing Agency (NTA) organises this entrance exam to select candidates for the 18 NIFT campuses across India. The fashion design admission process at NIFT involves two stages. First, students take the GAT and CAT exams, which test their aptitude in design and creativity. Then, selected candidates need to appear for the situation test, which evaluates their ability to handle materials.
Pearl Academy Entrance Exam: The Pearl Academy conducts the Pearl Entrance to choose students interested in studying fashion design. Like the NIFT entrance exam, students must take the GPT and DAT exams, which check their skills in drawing and aptitude. After this, there's an interview round to finalise the fashion design admission process. The exam is conducted five times yearly.
SMEAT: Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (SMI) conducts this exam to select students who have the potential to become fashion designers. The entrance exam happens five times a year.
UCEED: The UCEED exam is conducted once a year by IIT Bombay and offers admission to graphic design courses in many institutions. The paper has two parts -Part A tests the aptitude of the students, and Part B tests the drawing skills.
NID DAT exam: The National Institute of Design conducts the NID DAT exam once every year to intake students for the graphic design aspirants. Many colleges accept NID DAT results to intake students. It consists of Prelims and Mains.
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Admissions open for B.Design-Interior & Product, Fashion & Textile, User Experience and B.Design + MBA programs
The courses offered in these fields are the same in nature; they just are specialised either in fashion or in graphic design. The courses can be noted as one of the fashion design and graphic design similarities. Some of the popular design courses offered are:
B.Des: Bachelor of Design is an undergraduate course. The duration of this course is 4 years, and it is offered by many reputed institutions. This course is designed to teach students the subjects from scratch.
M.Des: Master of Design is a postgraduate course offered by many colleges to pursue after an undergraduate course. Students who want to go for higher studies or want to change streams opt for this.
Diploma: Diploma courses in fashion and graphic designing are one- or two-year courses specifically made to teach the students the very basics of the field and help them get jobs.
B.Voc: Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc) is a three-year undergraduate program that aims to teach students practically to face the real-life problems of graphic designing. It has a duration of usually three or four years.
Both fashion design and graphic design courses are from the design field. They have courses that teach the students the very basics of design. Courses that are in Bachelor's/diploma programs, which are taught from scratch, are common in both. Some of such courses are Fundamental elements of design, colour theory, basic illustrations, etc. If we come to the difference in courses, fashion designing courses teach skills like fashion illustration, draping, pattern making, and a few software related to fashion designing. Graphic designing, on the other hand, includes courses such as 3D Form Studies, Learning Computer Graphics, Design, Media and Technology, Branding, etc.
Please check:
Top 10 Popular Indian Graphic Designers
The students, while choosing a career, first need to understand what career options are available to them after the course. What fields can they expect the jobs in, and what is their lifestyle going to be like?
Courses offered in- Fashion Design, Product Design, Communication Design, Interior & Spatial Design & Animation & VFX Design
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Fashion Designers salary varies in between Rs. 32,902- Rs. 1,95,000 per month, which depends on the skills and experience one has. The graphic designers can earn between 1-2 lakhs per annum, and it can increase up to 10 lakhs per annum.
Experience | Graphic Designer | Fashion Designer |
Beginner (0-3 years) | 1-2 LPA | 2.5-3 LPA |
Intermediate (3-5 years) | 5-8 LPA | 6-8 LPA |
Expert (10+ years) | 10 LPA | 10-20LPA |
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Graphic design is creating patterns on computers which can be used on apparel.
Graphic designers work in the advertising industry business and other E-Commerce platforms.
In fashion, it depends on experience and skills to determine the salary. However, fashion designers, fashion stylists, and e-commerce managers are some of the well paid fashion jobs.
Yes, graphic design has a very stable future because of the increasing dependency on the internet for shopping and business.
A fashion designer can earn up to 1.2 lakhs to 8 lakhs depending on the skills and experience.
On Question asked by student community
Hello Dear Student,
Top government-run colleges offering a Bachelor of Design (BDes) in UI/UX in India. Admissions to these premier institutions are primarily based on national-level entrance exams like UCEED, NID DAT, and the NIFT Entrance Exam.
You can check, find and access more information here:
https://www.careers360.com/courses/ui-ux-course
https://www.careers360.com/courses/b-des-bachelor-of-design
Hope it
Hello Dear Student,
The total cost of pursuing a B.Des degree in India generally ranges from 4 lakh to 25 lakh or more for the entire course, depending on the institute.
Fees vary based on the college, location, and facilities offered.
Additional expenses may include hostel, mess, study materials, and
Hi,
The MIT Institute of Design B.Des final results for 2026 were published on May20, 2026 on the official portal. Candidates can download their scorecards by logging into the official website with their email ID and password.
You can also the results at https://design.careers360.com/articles/mit-dat-bdes-final-result-2026-out
Hello Romika, Please check the FDDI AIST BDes sample paper here . You can also check all the FDDI previous year sample papers for a better understanding and better preparation. Please let me know if I can assist you with anything else.
Hello Ishika,
For CUET 2026 exam preparation, you can refer to the CUET study materials such as NCERT books which are foundational textbooks covers all the important subjects, for science focused books you can refer to R.S. Aggarwal books and for current affairs you can refer to McGraw-hill books. These
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