Presentation Tips for Fashion and Textile Designer

Measuring

Measurement should be accurate. Time taken to measure with a ruler will save time in re-sticking and re-mounting work. If a piece of artwork is intended to be in the middle of a board, then measure to ensure it is. If a right angle is intended,  then make sure it is right angle.

Cutting

Sharp scissors and cutting knives should be used. The modeling knives that have blades with a series of removable sections are excellent. Ragged cutting lines can be avoided by a cutting on a suitable surface. Where available, use a guillotine. Paperwork that is deliberately torn should look as if this is intended and not that the mounting is just careless. For cutting fabrics, sharp scissors are a must.

To prevent the edges fraying, masking tape can be used as a backing round the fabric edges. Woven fabrics are best cut along ends and picks. Fabric should be ironed or pressed first, as squarely as possible. Beware pinking shears can give some strange corners to fabrics.

Mounting

Be creative in what work is mounted on, although whatever material is used, it must be appropriate to the type of work being mounted. A wide variety of materials can be used including corrugated cardboard, blotting paper, brown wrapping paper, sugar paper and even old books and magazines. Heavy cartridge paper in A4, A3 and A2 pads is a simple and effective base for much design work.

Ecru, black and grey backgrounds often work well as they interface less with the colour of the design work itself. Bright mounts can overpower the work being presented although there are of course times when they are appropriate. Shiny mounting boards can be difficult to use, picking up fingerprints and other marks easily.

Gluing

When sticking anything down, it must be done neatly and all the edges of any paperwork must be firmly fixed. Be careful that glue doest not stretch paper work; particularly watch cartridge paper that has not been stretched.

Finishing

All charcoal and pastel drawings should be sprayed with fixative (hair spray is a good, if smelly, fixative) and trimmed. Where possible, any group of such drawings should be trimmed to a common size.

The best design work is often simple. This is also true for presenting work. Keep it simple – allow the design work to be seen. Negative space is important; space around artwork can be very effective.

Also see other Tips and Tutorials on Textile & Fashion Designing