Textile Notes

Textile blog on Textile, Clothing and Fashion Resource

Textile Notes

Textile blog on Textile, Clothing and Fashion Resource

Tasks and Skills of a Textile Designer

Tasks and Skills of a Textile Designer

Textile designers have the role of designing and using traditional and modern textile manufacturing and decoration processes to create textiles for clothing and domestic and commercial furnishings. A Textile Designer is a professional who applies designs and patterns for fabrics and other textile materials. In this article, we discuss the Tasks and Skills of a Textile Designer.

Tasks and Skills of a Textile Designer
Tasks and Skills of a Textile Designer

Tasks and duties of Textile designers:

Textile designers may do some or all of the following:

  • Work with clients to develop design briefs.
  • Advise clients on colors and yarns.
  • Draw the design on paper first and then on a computer using textile design software.
  • Select the colors and designs for making the fabric.
  • Paint designs for printing.
  • Produce a sample of the fabric on a sample machine.
  • Instruct the machine technicians to set up machines in a particular way.
  • Instruct the finishers to adjust the finish to the final textile product.
  • Research the textile market for future fashion trends.
  • Work with customers to develop lines of textiles for the coming season.
  • Record technical information, such as the type and density of yarn, so that fabric costs can be calculated.

Personal Requirements of a Textile Designer

Skills
Textile designers need to have:

  • Creative ability and sound drawing and design skills.
  • Skills in textile design creation on computers.
  • Calculation and problem-solving skills.
  • Design brief interpretation skills.
  • Good communication skills.
  • Market research skills to work out the demands of the fabric and textile market.
  • Team skills and the ability to give and take instructions.
  • An ability to work to deadlines.
  • To be familiar with computer-aided design and marking.

Basic word processing and data entry skills are also useful.

Knowledge of a Textile Designer

Textile designers must know about:

  • Traditional and modern textile manufacturing processes and machinery.
  • Textile materials and their properties.
  • How different weaving structures can be used.
  • How garments are made when designing clothing fabric.
  • Interior design, when designing commercial and domestic interior textiles.
  • Fashion trends and technical advances in the textile design and manufacturing industry.

Personal qualities of a Textile Designer

Textile designers need to have:

  • A strong sense of fashion.
  • A good eye for color, pattern, shape, and detail.
  • Accurate and careful work habits.
  • The ability to make sound judgments.
  • The ability to compromise in order to create the textile designs their customers want or to meet manufacturers’ requirements.
  • The ability to be observant when working alongside weaving tuners.

Physical requirements

  • Excellent color vision is required.

How to enter the job?

Secondary education
A tertiary entrance qualification is needed to enter a degree program. Useful subjects include maths, art, and design or technology.

Tertiary education
Textile design diplomas and degrees are available at polytechnics and universities. For entry to both diploma and degree programs, candidates need to submit a portfolio of original art or design work.

Related courses that you can do:
Clothing, Fashion and Textiles

Entry requirements
There are no other entry requirements to become a textile designer.

Useful experience
Useful experience includes art, design, weaving, sewing, knitting, or painting.

Training on the job
Employers who employ graduates will usually train textile designers in their specific manufacturing processes.

Working conditions

Workplaces and travel
Textile designers work in design studios located in textile mills. Freelance textile designers may work from home or have design studios in art galleries.

Equipment
Textile designers use a variety of equipment including:

  • Computers and textile design software
  • Sample looms, knitting machines, or carpet tufters
  • Drawing boards, various drawing and design equipment
  • Paints, screen printing materials, and dyes
  • Yarns and color swatches.

Employment conditions

Contact with people
Textile designers work with co-designers and design assistants, industrial weavers, finishers and menders, mill managers, printing companies, yarn suppliers, and clients. So that they can complete the necessary tasks and utilize all the Skills of a Textile Designer.

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