Hi, I'm James Brown, and I'm the creative director of Pattern Designers.
In this video, I'm going to walk you through how I became a textile designer.
If you'd like to stay til the end, you can get a free textile design cheat sheet.
How I started.
So, how did I start out?
I was always into drawing, always into art.
Drawing, drawing, drawing as a kid.
Through school, loved art, loved geography, and maths as well, but art was my best subject.
I went on to college, 16 to 18, did a BTEC National in Art and Design in the UK.
I'm currently ... A little background.
I currently live in Australia, but I'm originally from the UK.
So, did this BTECH National in Art and Design, covered a range of subjects in art, so architecture,
woodwork design, pottery, surface pattern design, illustration, photography, a little
bit of everything, and, looking back, we did a section in pattern textile design, and I
was really good at it, and I can't believe that it was missed.
In college, if they would have ... At the point where I was deciding to go university,
if they would have said, "Oh, you can be a textile designer, and do this illustration,
but in repeat patterns and placement prints for textiles to go on garments," I probably
would have gone, "Yeah, I would love to do that."
It's a bit of a shame it wasn't pointed out there.
Anyway, I went on from college to do a degree in illustration.
That started out, on the first six weeks, you did two weeks of photography, two weeks
of illustration, two weeks of typography, and I went to university to do illustration,
I knew I was going to do illustration, so did that, completed the course, got a degree,
and the only thing missing from my university course was the key of how to get work in illustration,
how to get a job in illustration, how to get freelance work in illustration, and that was
missing from my course.
These days, they probably give you a lot more insight in how to get work as an illustrator,
and the courses will probably crossover a lot more into graphic design illustration,
because they're kind of merged now.
So, that's how I started off.
If I was going back to the beginning, 16, I would probably ... These days, I would probably
head over to YouTube, find as much information in the types of art you want to learn, specifically
for textile design.
There's not tons out there, but it is out there.
Head over to Skillshare, do as many online courses as possible, maybe do a part-time
job while I'm learning this from 16 to 18, and then 18, having a portfolio ready, ready
to hit the market and go out there, get a job in textile design, get some freelance
work in textile design, and just do it that way, so you haven't got that three years waiting
to finish your course, a university course, and I'm not saying university is a wasted
amount of time, but if your goal is to get a job in art, in textile design, or illustration,
the faster the better.
The more you learn, the quicker you learn, and the quicker you can do things, the faster
you're going to get a job.
My freelance illustration career.
Out of uni, my mom bought me a brand new Apple Mac.
A Tower G3.
Old school in the year 2000.
I then learnt how to use Photoshop, how to use Illustrator, and how to do graphic design.
I then used the graphic design work that I'd produced in about three months to get a job
in graphic design at a newspaper.
Had this job for about a year, then I got made redundant, and decided I wanted to focus
on illustration, and a career in freelance illustration, because I'd done it at university.
I wanted to use my degree to the best of my potential.
So I did.
I headed towards editorial illustration, book publishing, and advertising, because I knew
that that was where the main bulk of illustration work was.
I did okay.
I didn't do super awesomely.
I was constantly working from style to style, and doing different styles, combining Illustrator
with hand drawn, because I started off doing more hand drawn work and then graduated into
Illustrator, because it was just faster to get work to the clients, and more efficient.
You don't have to rub stuff out, you can just change it within a few clicks.
I used to use a mouse, now I use a Wacom.
So, that's where I started, as a freelance illustrator, and I'd say the main bulk of
my career's been learning new techniques.
New techniques in illustration and new techniques in how to sell my work.
How to do graphic design.
How to build websites.
How to build promotional material.
I taught myself a lot, and I'd say to you guys out there, learn as much as you possibly
can, because that's how you'll get to where you want to get to.
My transition into textile design.
In 2011, I met a girl called Milly Blunt.
She was working for Karolina York, well had just finished working for Karolina York Print
Studio in Sydney, and she was setting up her own textile design studio.
She now runs Camilla Frances Prints.
They're based in London and they're doing very well.
While she was setting up her studio over here in Australia, she took three weeks out to
teach me how a textile design studio runs, and so I learnt a lot of tips and tricks of
what the nuts and bolts are to run a textile design studio in 2011.
How to do repeats, how to make good flow in prints, how to use color, trend, mood boards
to produce a collection of artwork, how to sell to clients, how to present to clients,
how to present at Premiere Vision, so I learnt a lot from her and thanks, Milly, because
you taught me a lot.
I wouldn't be doing the career I do today without your help.
My textile design studio.
Said I want to run a textile design studio and seriously dedicated all of my time to
being a textile designer and running a textile design studio.
So, producing prints every day, getting trend boards, and working from trend only, and producing
a collection of artwork to sell to clients.
From there, I started presenting my work to clients.
I didn't get my work printed onto silk, because I couldn't afford to, so just started selling
via online, email, and phone calls, and got a bit of work out of it.
Got consistent work out of it, Nana Judy, Cotton On, Target, BikBok, SleepMaker mattresses
is a bit of weird one.
I really enjoyed doing that work though.
So, yeah, ran a studio for quite a few years.
Working full time as a textile designer.
Working full time as a textile designer is awesome, I've got to say.
Working as a freelancer.
Working full time.
I much prefer working full time.
Gives me that consistency of income.
I'm not always hunting for work.
I get to produce artwork day in, day out, get it signed off, and it goes on garments.
I currently design for 1-7 boyswear, for an Australian retailer.
They have approximately 320 stores Australia wide.
The garments I produce for are shirts, t-shirts, board shorts, shorts, jackets.
Each quarter has three themes to work to.
Each theme we work to, we produce ... The consistency in boys wear is dino prints, shark
prints, trucks and cars.
They're the key big sellers.
There's also key colors that we work to that are consistently in stores.
I work with a designer and a buyer.
I'm the design manager.
The buyer buys the product that we ... Chooses how many units of each product that they're
going to buy.
The designer designs the garment and places the my graphic design on the garment.
In general, we have to sell one to two thousand units per week.
In general, we order 10 to 30 thousand units of one product.
So, I have one dino t-shirt, it gets printed on 10 to 20 thousand.
That 10 to 20 thousand, generally, needs to sell one to two thousand per week, and needs
to sell out within 12 weeks, or 10 to 12 weeks, so that the product doesn't have to get marked
down.
And stuff that you don't learn as a freelancer, you don't learn about that sales, and units,
and how many units your artwork is going on, which is a really great insight to how ... Because
it's real.
It's super real.
As a freelancer, you do your artwork, hand it to the client, they tick it, or they say,
"Oh, I want this amended.
I want these colors amended," and you do that, and then you sign it off, and you see it in
store, you see it online, but you don't get those unit sales.
The unit sales is really important, because you base the current design ... My current
designs that I design, they're based on last year's sales as well.
They're based on color, attributes like is it a dino?
Is it a shark?
Is it a truck?
Those sold 15,000 units for 10 weeks flat.
We're going to one of those this year, but reinvent it, renew it, do a new version.
You know that, based on those previous year's sales, you've got a winner, because it sold
so much last year, you've just got to look at it from another perspective, and produce
fresh, new artwork that's in line with trend, but is going to sell the units as well.
Love it.
Love full time work.
Now you know how I became a textile designer.
If you want to learn some more, I have a free textile design cheat sheet in the description.
Please subscribe to my channel and like this video.
Share it on Facebook.
Share it on ... No, you can't share it on Instagram, but share it where you want to.
Be nice.
I'll see you in the next video.
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