If you’re in school for fashion design or are looking to become a fashion designer on your own, there are certain tools you should have in your arsenal. In today’s digital age, it’s imperative that you have access to fashion design software to make your ideas and sketches a tangible reality. Take your creative renderings from paper to promotable models with the right program and technological savvy. Many fashion students use Adobe Illustrator to take their designs into the digital space, but there are other fashion design software programs that can prove beneficial. We’ve highlighted four of the top offerings below. Head below to see the best fashion design software on the market.
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe’s dominance has made it almost impossible to work without using Creative Suite. Designers use Illustrator to draw flat sketches with callouts for construction and styling details. Then these are used in tech packs so the team and manufacturers can easily understand and follow.
There are great resources available for Illustrator newbies. You can join free webinars and classes at Fashion Classroom or Sew Heidi, for instance. But there are many more, youtube alone has a myriad of free tutorials. Another options is to take lots of photos if you’d rather not do functional sketches… I made this quick attempt to create a tech pack (specification) without using illustrator in less than 5 minutes…
Pantone Color Finder
Pantone’s innovative system of matching, communicating and identifying colors has made it easier for designers to work together with manufacturers. But, as with everything digital, there are more efficient ways to find that colour you need without it being super time consuming:
If you are a Google Chrome or Firefox user, this simple extension with Color Picker and Eye Dropper will assist you finding color reading as RGB. You can then use Pantone’s Color Finder to translate into the nearest Pantone number. You can also use Pantone color App for i-phones and Android based phones where once a photo is chosen the Pantone Color App exports color values directly.
Slack
Slack is a communication platform that allows team members to work in organized groups or easily searchable one-on-one conversation threads. Slack has been widely adopted by both smaller and larger teams, and unlike those boring and ugly softwares, it brings a fresh approach to sharing files and communication.
I hope that by using these tools, you’ll get through your work faster and go home early to spend quality time with your family, pets and loved ones. Any apps and tools that I missed? We’d love to learn about your favorite ones! Shoot us an email or comment below.
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