Textile Design Economics

TEX0
(Level 3)

Dr. Tamer F. Khalifa

2018-2019
Lecture (3)
 Textile Designer
What are the requirements in a textile designer?

• Apply a wide range of fabric additions and handling

techniques to create their personal designs
• works closely with clients and design teams to create unique
fabrics using a variety of design concepts and media, including
textile CAD software programs, such as Pro-Weave, 3D
Mapping, Photoshop, and other software
• Possess excellent communication skills to discuss, understand,
and interpret the requirements and needs of his or her
clients.
• understand the basic principles of design research to assess
the distinction of a specific design or designs
• Have strong organizational and computer skills. They must
possess the ability to analyze and interpret test data and
compile (gather) presentations; working along with creative
teams of textile engineers, project managers, and graphic
designers
• possess the design skills necessary to carry out the production
of design samples and sketches, and the ability to create client
presentations using various printed or digital designs; whether
written, draw, or verbal.
• Knowledge of weaving (Materials, structure, machinery ,
costing, …..) graphic design, and line drawing are also helpful
skills to have
 Designers found in the textiles industries

The designers found in textiles and clothing include:

• colorists predicting and forecasting future color ranges

• yarn designers
• knitted fabric designers
• woven fabric designers
• carpet designers
• print designers
• embroidery designers
• knitwear designers
• garment designers
• accessory designers
 The Textile Designer
The role of the designer can be quite complex
but the overall purpose can be stated quite
simply —the textile designer has to design and
produce, to an agreed timetable, an agreed
number of commercially viable fabric designs
The designer involved activities will vary
according to the product and production
methods used
 Categories of Textile Designers
• In-house designer
are employed by a company usually on a full-time
basis, although some may be employed part-time.
Often they work within a manufacturing environment
• Free Lancer designer
may either work for independent studios or through
an agent, producing designs on paper for which the
studio/agent receives a commission when the
designs are sold to mills and converters
 Consultant
• A third type of designer found within textiles is the
consultant designer. A consultant is employed by a
company to advise on design matters and may be
given the task of managing the design programme.
• A consultant designer will usually work for several
companies at any one time,
• Very often consultants will do little actual working-
through design ideas themselves; rather they will
make design policy decisions and direct other
designers who may be in-house or freelance.
 Commercial Textile Designer:

Weave designers in industry require a different approach to

design creation and development, even though their education
may have been identical to that of the craft weaver Tight
deadlines, cost and productivity demands, coupled with
performance requirements all have to be taken into account,
and this necessitates a more considered approach to the design
process. Re-invention of classic fabrics, a trawl through the
archives, or interpretations of trend predictions are the most
likely routes to a design collection for an industry-based
designer; requiring a decisive focused approach.
What are the concerns facing the textile designer
What are the challenges facing a textile designer now?

• Concerns to energy consumption.

• Concerns to raw material prices & consumption .
• Concerns to production time.
• Concerns to complexity to produce.
• Concerns to finishing prices.
• Concerns to customer demands.
• Concerns to properties required.
• Concerns to his design desires.
• Concerns to labor quality.
• Concerns about parameters set by the sales and market.
 An industry base designer
• The creative process no longer demands that the designer sit in front of a loom
and work through various weave in isolation. (Its CAD & CAM)
• Not only can this reduce costly mistakes, by enabling the designer to visualize the
design before committing to an actual fabric, it can also replace some of the early
stages of sample trials
• The current range of weave software packages, allow the designer to visualize a
design without ever having to weave one pick
• This ability to view a weave design, both in a 2D and 3D format and to immediately
see the impact of a change to a draft or peg plan on the cloth, has made it possible
for the less skilled weaver to work
• CAD software from companies such as Scotweave, Pointcarre, Ned Graphics and
EAT are all capable of generating realistic simulations of both dobby and jacquard
fabrics; which can be then transferred to a chosen loom for immediate weaving.
This ability to create and control a loom through CAD has helped facilitate the
development of overseas manufacturing, whilst at the same time keeping the
design development control

• Figure out Options and tools that effect the economics of a design?
 Textile designer activities
• Deciding what to design.
• Producing original design ideas.
• Developing design ideas
• Supervising the production of original fabric samples and keeping suitable records.
• Submitting samples to customers, to company or to company selection systems.
• Adapting and modifying designs from sketches or fabrics submitted by customers
(or obtained from within the firm or group) to meet a price or other restriction.
• Controlling the production of sample ranges with the customer’s
• Establishing production specifications.
• Ensuring the production of sample ranges by certain agreed dates.
• Working within an agreed departmental budget.
• Controlling the supply of materials and equipment for design and sampling.

All textile designers will certainly be involved in some of these and should have an
understanding of all of them.