Here's part two of this article. It continues to describe the role of the designer. I based it off of my work experience with the various jobs that I held as associate designer and sourcing associate.
Being a designer, you have to coordinate your tasks with different in-house divisions. The ultimate goal is to have your production ship to stores on-time. Here is how the designer coordinates with the following teams.
•Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions. As a designer one works with an entire team of people in order to coordinate the process of sample making and production approvals. This applies to interacting with in house departments such as the following:
sales: Design normally generates style sheets for the sales team to use during market week. This computer generated catalog normally includes a brief description of each product with fabric details. It also shows the many colorways a particular garment will be sold in.
Design also works with the sales team to get feedback on what the buyers want and any changes that the buyers require for a particular style, design has to act on the changes that the buyers want by putting into work a new sample reflecting the change.
production: Design’s role with production is to make sure that if any questions arise during a garments approval process that a representative from design is ready and available to answer these questions. There could be a need to confirm a print layout on a strike-off or if there are any concerns about fabric quality, design can reconfirm with their production counterpart.
technical design: Design normally works with technical design during the entire process of a garment’s life. Initial sketches are presented to the tech person to go over new styling details for each delivery. Design has to make sure that the technical designer is fully aware of all styling details because, tech creates the specs that will be sent to the manufacturer. Any prolonged delays in the process could result in a style not being in-house for market week. Design also has to attend fittings to make sure that the garment’s overall look and fit is what they conceived.
cad (computer aided design): Design works with this department when new artwork is needed for a style. For example, if a pair of cotton capri pants are designed to have a floral print, design is responsible for giving cad any purchased artwork that was used to conceive the idea plus any additional requests to be represented in the final work. Design tells the cad team what colorways to print the artwork in and approves the repeat or border or placed art pattern. Design has to make sure that artwork such as a print, embroidery, applique is affordable. They work with the cad team to stay within the allowed price for each art work.
product development: Product development sends out the packages of style development which includes fabric, artwork, and in some cases specs to the manufacturers. Design works with this team to make sure that the packages are correct as if the wrong fabric details go out to factories, this could delay the fabric sample yardage making process. Product development also raises any alarms in terms of fabric yardage availability and tracks samples for the design team.
Do you work Differnetly?
Smaller companies may work slightly different from larger companies. What are the rewards? Being able to juggle all of these tasks season after season successfully bringing in sales and repeat orders is definitely a major reward. Walking down the street and seeing someone wear one of the garments that you designed is rewarding as well.
Of course there are some seasons when sales are bad and tensions are high. That's the whole challenge of being a designer. It's being able to keep moving forward.
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