Profession fashion designer

Fashion designers design and develop products for manufacture and prepare designs and specifications of products for mass, batch and one-off production.

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Personality Type

• Artistic / Enterprising

Related professions design

• Fashion model
• Fashion stylist, clothing advisor
• Furniture designer
• Illustrator
• Industrial products designer
• Multimedia designer
• Package designer
• Tailor, seamstress

Knowledge

• Portfolio management in textile manufacturing

  The process of managing teams and projects in textile and clothing product development.

• History of fashion

  Costumes and the cultural traditions around clothing.

• Textile materials

  Have a good understanding of the properties of different textile materials.

• Art history

  The history of art and artists, the artistic trends throughout centuries and their contemporary evolutions.

• Textile techniques

  Have a thorough understanding of textile processing techniques.

Skills

• Produce textile designs

  Draw sketches for textile design, by hand or on computer, using specialist Computer Aided Design (CAD) software.

• Design wearing apparel

  Use analytical skills, creativity, and recognise future trends in order to design wearing apparel.

• Gather reference materials for artwork

  Gather samples of the materials you expect to use in the creation process, especially if the desired piece of art necessitates the intervention of qualified workers or specific production processes.

• Modify textile designs

  Edit sketches and digital textile designs until they meet up with customers' requirements.

• Produce textile samples

  Make up textile samples or have them fabricated by specialised workers or technicians.

• Seek innovation in current practices

  Search for improvements and present innovative solutions, creativity and alternative thinking to develop new technologies, methods or ideas for and answers to work-related problems.

• Use textile technique for hand-made products

  Using textile technique to produce hand-made products, such as carpets, tapestry, embroidery, lace, silk screen printing, wearing apparel, etc.

• Identify target markets for designs

  Identify different target markets for new designs, considering factors such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status.

• Monitor textile manufacturing developments

  Keep up to date with recent developments in textile manufacturing and processing techniques and technologies.

• Collaborate with designers

  Communicate and collaborate with fellow designers in order to coordinate new products and designs.

• Develop design ideas cooperatively

  Share and develop design ideas with the artistic team. Conceptualise new ideas independently and with others. Present your idea, gain feedback and take it into account. Make sure the design fits with the work of other designers.

• Monitor developments in technology used for design

  Identify and explore recent developments in technology and materials used in the live performance industry, in order to create an up-to-date technical background for one’s personal design work.

• Use specialised design software

  Developing new designs mastering specialised software.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB