Nicole B: Textile Designer Boden

As a textile designer, your job heavily relies on computer software. For Example CAD, illustrator etc. Below is a youtube video of Nicola B who is a textile designer at Boden and throughout the video you can see her using computer software to manipulate and develop textile prints and designs. As you can see this is very helpful in the modern world as you can change and develop designs with a click of a button, as apposed to re-drawing ideas out over and over again.
I feel that this job role would be good for me as I like the idea of exhausting ideas for textile prints and creating garments with these prints on them, also using global inspiration to create these designs, however I feel that I would not be creative enough to create a design. 

Laser Cutting in the Fashion Industry

Laser Cutting

Lela Rose

 Spring Summer 2007

Ready to Wear

http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/spring-summer-2007/ready-to-wear/lela-rose/full-length-photos/gallery/183633

As you can see above, there is an image of a garment by Lela Rose in her Spring/Summer 2007 collection, where the detailing has been made using a laser cutter. 

Laser cutters are machinery that cuts into a surface, which provides a cleaner and more accurate cut towards a higher quality finish.  Laser cutting works better on synthetic fabrics due to the plastics in these fabrics melting creating a sealed edge that will not fray, whereas more natural fabrics will singe by the heat holding the fibres in place. 

Laser Cutting Machine

Above are two images that I have created using illustrator. They are laser cutting examples that can be used on a garment. You could put this design on the bottom of a skirt to cut out or on the neckline of a top or a dress. You could also use this on a waistband. 

When creating this, I used guides and rulers to make the pattern the same, and then I used the pen tool to create a filled shape. When creating these, you have to make sure that you do not use too many bezier points due to the laser struggling to cut the fabric and it may take a while. 

Above are the laser cutting designs placed on to a dress. as you can see I have played around with the positioning, to the waistband and hem. 

Experimenting with Flowers on a garment

Above is an illustration and four potential dress ideas using the flower that I drew on illustrator using a picture that I took. As you can see, you can play with the scale and proportion of the textile pattern to create other patterns. This is part of the developmental process and I have illustrated this above.

Flower Drawing Using Illustrator

Above is a drawing that I created using illustrator. The reason that I drew a flower was due to the idea of using it as a textile design on a garment. I took this picture in my garden and thought that it was a very good image to use for textile design as the thread could portray a scratchy effect on the material.