Textile Print Design

Freelance Textile Print Designer. 

Zoe is a  freelance fashion and textile print designer, with over twenty years  experience in the fashion and textiles industry. Based in Essex, a short distance from central London, she is available to hire  from her own  printing studios, or to work in-house  when required.

A textile designer needs a good eye for colour and for detail. they create two dimensional designs to be used as repeat used in fashion industry as well as interior design and furnishings.

Zoe  offers a multi-product textile print, design, and development service for  designers, fashion startups, small businesses, high street brands, retailers, and individual clients.

Multiple Products. 

Zoe`s  work covers surface pattern design for multiple products, including  rugs, throws, towels,  curtains,  upholstery, bespoke wall hangings, soft furnishings, and custom textiles for clothing brands.

Whatever your product, your textile print is  vitally  important to get right. It can really make or break any style or  range. The correct print can elevate a simple design from something quite mundane, to something stunning and very commercial.

A signature print style can  give your brand a strong sense of identity and individuality, when repeated through a range of products and styles.

Fashion Prints.

Zoe has a solid background in the fashion and textiles  industry, having worked on fabric printing for  womenswear, childrenswear, and menswear. She has  a highly distinctive commercial handwriting, across florals, animal prints, abstracts, vintage, conversational pieces…The list goes on.

Mood Board Creation.

Clients are encouraged to create a mood board to help provide inspiration, focus and direction, as well as to convey their ideas to colleagues and buyers.

Mood boards are essential  If you are unsure of what direction to develop the prints for your product, or need your ideas focussed. Zoe can help you create a customised mood board  based on the clients brief.

A mood board may be a seasonal mood board for a range of products, including artwork, colour palettes, sketches, and fabrics.

Zoe offers a mood board creation service that can direct and inspire you. She can create a  board, based on your own design brief,  research new ideas and collate them in an easy to understand format for you.

This can either be product driven, such as a motif based on your print for an existing pyjama range, or theme driven, ie, ideas based on a vintage floral.

Research.

In order to create an effective mood board it is necessary to collect useful information over a period of time. The best textile designers, and creative entrepreneurs need to be constantly collecting examples of interesting and unusual designs from all sorts of sources.

This aids in providing inspiration for future design projects. Researching design trends is an essential part of the job. This is an ongoing process.

Designs.

Once you have created your mood board, and discussed your thoughts with Zoe, you should have a clear idea of what you want, and the direcction you want to take.  Zoe will then create a production ready print for you, based on your own ideas and inspirations.

Adobe Illustrator And Photoshop.

Computer aided design ( CAD) enables textile designers to use their creativity to the fullest. Zoe creates all her print designs  on either Adobe Illustrator, or Photoshop. They come in repeat and colour separated layers where possible.

Creating A Repeat Design.

For a large piece of  fabric to be printed continuously and smoothly, the design must be printed using a series of identical repeat tiles that form a seamless overall  design. Each tile edge flows into each other tile edge.

This can be a very tricky and time consuming process, depending on the complexity of the design. Each tile needs to be checked meticulously to ensure that it repeats flawlessly.

All Over Print Design.

All-Over-Prints (AOP) is widely used for different types of products, especially in streetwear products such as   T shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts, where both front and back are printed, using screen printing, or alternatively, digital or sublimation printing.

Direct To Garment Printing.

Direct-To-Garment printing (DTG ) is not limited to specific print areas

Print Direction.

Zoe can  discuss with you and advise on print direction and layout. This will definitely effect the look of the garment, but can also dramatically affect the fabric costing.

A directional, or one-way  print, is where a fabric has a clear up and down to the pattern. In a one way print  all motifs face in the same direction.

In a non directional fabric, or two-way print,  motifs are facing two ways.

We can also advise on the layout and spacing of border prints.

Colour Separated Layers. 

For ease of colour change most of our prints have each colour separated, so that it is easy  to play around with colour ways, by changing each colour individually. This is  important if you are planning on rotary printing your fabric, as each screen will be a separate colour.

Using Pantone Colour References.

Colours can look very different onscreen to real life, so it is important to ensure that printers have a good reference for the colours you choose. This is where Pantone is essential.

Pantone is a colour matching system, developed in 1950. Instead of having to describe to your printer what type of colour you are looking for, you can provide a Pantone code for a very specific colour.

This is also important if you want to give the printers Pantone references for the colours you choose. This is normally a good idea, as colours can look very different on screen to real life. This isnt possible in all styles of print, but this will be explained at the beginning of the process where this isnt possible or needed.

Scale.

Scale is so important for prints, and very easy to get wrong. Zoe will help you decide on the right scale for your product and  ensure  that the print files reflect this. If you are rotary screen printing she will  ensure that your print files are the correct size for the screens.

Development Of Bought Prints.

Zoe can also help you develop a print you have bought as an idea, or a vintage find into a workable commercial print.

Sometimes prints  bought from designers are sold as just ideas, but are not actually workable – They are not in a repeat format, or you may have just liked one element of the design, but not the whole look as is.

We can offer you a service to take elements of your chosen design and work this into a print for your product, or the design as a whole but make it workable.

Creating colour separated and repeat designs takes a a lot longer than just coming up with the idea alone, so often print houses wont include this in the price of the design.

Using Vintage Sample Prints.

You may  have a lovely vintage print that you have bought or sourced and want this developed into a print you can use. This is definitely something we can do for you.

A specific vintage print that you would like to reproduce directly

customise designs

Textile Printing Tuition.

Zoe offers one-to-one tuition for anyone interested in learning textile print design. Classes can be face to face in Essex, or online  via Zoom.

How do I become a fabric print designer ?

The long way would be to obtain a degree, as most positions require a degree in textile design. A fashion and textiles degree  take at least three years to achieve. Many universities will give you the option of a sandwich degree, which would increase  the course length to four years.

You dont need a degree to become a textile designer. You just need some design talent and a willingness to learn. A potential employer does not really care about your qualifications. They only care about what you can do, and what you can do for them. A good portfolio is far more valuable than a degree.

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