Fabric design, or textile surface design, has long fascinated me. The ability to play with the color, proportion, and spacing of a design through a repeat is very intriguing. Kight briefly explores different styles, design and color fundamentals as applied to textiles. This includes a look at both digital and traditional design techniques. The meat of the book is the explanation of how repeats are created, including different repeat styles. Both digital and traditional (hand drawn) techniques are explained. Interspersed throughout the book are comments from fabric designers, both established and just starting out, from which the reader can draw inspiration. Finally, Kight presents ideas of how to print and sell your own fabric. What quickly becomes clear is that textiles fabric designing is a competitive and difficult market.
1/8/13 designloft.blogspot.com
If you’ve ever dreamed of having a go at designing your own fabrics, you simply must, must, must get yourself a copy of this book. IT’s a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know and everything you need to think about when it comes to developing and producing a printed fabric. Design and colour basics are explained, with step-by-step tutorials for creating repeat patterns by hand or computer. Then you can explore the myriad ways of transferring your design to cloth, from stamping and screen printing to digital printing with short-run fabric printers such as Spoonflower through to how to go about getting a contract with one of the large fabric companies to produce a range that you’ve designed. This book will be valuable to those who would just like to play with the occasional designs as well as those who aspire to be the next Amy Butler. If you have good ideas and some design flair, there’s now nothing stopping you. Go for it.
September 2012 Australian Homespun Magazine
Have you ever wanted to design your own fabrics? In A Field Guide to Fabric Design (Stash Books, 2011) Kimberly Kight makes the process clear and exciting. In Section One, read about basic design with insights directly from fabric artists, learn how to design repeats by hand or by computer, and discover a world of color to create your own palette. In Section Two, find out which fabrics are best for printing and learn a step-by-step tutorial to blocking and screen printing, as well as an introduction to digital printing. Delve into the world of fabric design in Section Three. Included are helpful hints for whether you’re simply designing for fun or want to design professionally.
Have you ever wanted to design your own fabrics? In A Field Guide to Fabric Design (Stash Books, 2011) Kimberly Kight makes the process clear and exciting. In Section One, read about basic design with insights directly from fabric artists, learn how to design repeats by hand or by computer, and discover a world of color to create your own palette. In Section Two, find out which fabrics are best for printing and learn a step-by-step tutorial to blocking and screen printing, as well as an introduction to digital printing. Delve into the world of fabric design in Section Three. Included are helpful hints for whether you’re simply designing for fun or want to design professionally.
If you’ve ever dreamed of having a go at designing your own fabrics, you simply must, must, must get yourself a copy of this book. IT’s a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know and everything you need to think about when it comes to developing and producing a printed fabric. Design and colour basics are explained, with step-by-step tutorials for creating repeat patterns by hand or computer. Then you can explore the myriad ways of transferring your design to cloth, from stamping and screen printing to digital printing with short-run fabric printers such as Spoonflower through to how to go about getting a contract with one of the large fabric companies to produce a range that you’ve designed. This book will be valuable to those who would just like to play with the occasional designs as well as those who aspire to be the next Amy Butler. If you have good ideas and some design flair, there’s now nothing stopping you. Go for it.
Fabric design, or textile surface design, has long fascinated me. The ability to play with the color, proportion, and spacing of a design through a repeat is very intriguing. Kight briefly explores different styles, design and color fundamentals as applied to textiles. This includes a look at both digital and traditional design techniques. The meat of the book is the explanation of how repeats are created, including different repeat styles. Both digital and traditional (hand drawn) techniques are explained. Interspersed throughout the book are comments from fabric designers, both established and just starting out, from which the reader can draw inspiration. Finally, Kight presents ideas of how to print and sell your own fabric. What quickly becomes clear is that textiles fabric designing is a competitive and difficult market.
There are several instructional overviews including hand block printing, screen printing, designing a collection, and textile basics. All are comprehensive and a good foundation for further study and exploration.
The book is laid out well and is easy to read and follow. The instructions for designing repeats are clear and easy to understand.
I liked this book a lot and I will reference it when I play around with designs, whether for a desktop wallpaper or for fabric I intend on printing.
A field Guide to Fabric Design by Kimberly Kight (click here for a link to her Blog ‘True Up’) is well worth reading for anyone interested in finding out more about this fascinating field. It is suited to those with a casual interest through to professionals looking to expand their expertise. It covers all the basics of fabric design from design and colour, types of motif, creating repeats by hand on the computer to printing and even selling your designs!
The book is really well laid out with clear headers, images and tutorials throughout the book. Scattered throughout are question and answer sections from some of the US’s leading printed textiles designers. This book talks about the US market but the principals are the same wherever you are and I would highly recommend it.
Kight, a self-taught fabric designer and blogger (www.trueup.net), introduces novices to the processes and artistry behind creating patterned fabric. After covering the nuts and bolts of design, including color theory, directional patterns, and types of fabric, Kight describes the process of creating one's own fabrics using both pen-and-paper and computer-based design and printing the finished design (or hiring someone to print the fabric for you). Though the audience for the design sections of the book is limited to crafters with an artistic bent, much of the other content will help quilters and sewers make the best possible use of the fabrics in their collections.
