Product Design
Product Designers employ a range of creative design, craft and engineering skills and processes to design and realise products for a variety of applications. Balancing engineering, function and aesthetic appeal, products may be for mass manufacture or production in small quantities.
Responsible for the design, modelling, testing and production of prototypes of brand new products, or making improvements to existing products, a Product Designer must have in-depth knowledge and understanding of materials, production processes, market research and commercial awareness.
The workload is varied and intense: meeting with clients to establish the design brief, including the concept, performance and production criteria; developing design concepts using CAD; identifying the suitability, availability and cost efficiency of materials; liaising with engineers to negotiate appropriate production processes and making presentations to senior design management or clients, either when bidding for a contract or to present design proposals.
Print Design
Print Designers use computerised or digital printing processes alongside more traditional craft-based methods, increased collaboration with computer artists.
Print Designers often teach to support themselves and finance their work and may also share their expertise with educational organisations. More experienced Print Designers might manage a team operating from shared workshop facilities, offering other artistic/design services, as well as printing.
A Print Designer needs to be proficient in a variety of techniques, including etching, screen printing, lithography, relief printing and computer-generated images. They will also have the confidence to render their designs on a variety of surfaces, especially plastics, textiles, wood, metal and glass. Communications skills are essential as the Print Designer will take client briefs and advise them on the technical aspects of production. Common commercial assignments include producing promotional items, such as catalogues, t-shirts, and signs, printing on exhibition display stands and silk screen printing for posters.
Garment Technology
A Garment Technologist supports design and buying teams through all stages of product development, from design to manufacture. Employed by a garment manufacturer or a large high-street retailer, responsibilities include: suggesting modifications to designs, advising on suitable fabrics, making sure that the most appropriate construction methods are used, ensuring garments can be produced within budget, overseeing fabric testing and fittings of first samples, responding to product queries and analysing product returns and faults.
Pattern Cutting
Pattern Cutters are a vital link between the design and manufacturing stages in clothing production. Creating pattern templates from working drawings produced by a fashion designer, the Pattern Cutter then works with machinists to make up samples.
There are three commonly used methods for creating patterns: draping pieces of material over a dummy, shaping and pinning them around the ‘body’ until they fit correctly then cutting out a paper or card pattern based on the pieces; altering and shaping flat, standard cardboard pattern 'blocks' into a style; modifying non-standard pattern 'bases' taken from the company's pattern library.
A Pattern Cutter may use computer design programs to make up some patterns as well as traditional hand-drawn methods. Once the initial pattern is established the Pattern Cutter will work closely with the in-house sample machinist or manufacturer to make up an sample garment. Designers and garment technologists are consulted before any further adjustments or alterations to produce the final pattern which is then passed to the pattern grader to resize as required before production begins.
Pattern Grading
Pattern Graders produce scaled-up and scaled-down versions of original patterns made by a pattern cutter, allowing manufacturers to make the same garment in different sizes. With computer software packages gradually replacing traditional hand-drafting techniques, Pattern Graders today use two main methods for grading or resizing patterns: laying the pattern on a digitising table, tracing its outline with a light pen and taking measurements at key points so the computer can adjust the size and proportions; tracing the outline with scanning equipment, which produces extremely accurate copies that can be scaled to size.
The final part of a Pattern Grader’s job is to check that the computerised pattern relates to the original, then send a copy to the manufacturer in the correct format for their fabric-cutting machinery.
Quality Control
Quality Control Managers are responsible for setting up and monitoring systems to control the quality of products or services. The aim is to achieve a standard that satisfies customer requirements but many companies want to meet national or international quality standards to prove their competitiveness and win more business.
Quality Control Managers improve product quality and streamline working practices in a number of ways: measuring performance against in-house and external standards; reviewing existing policies and improving quality management systems (QMS); identifying areas of weakness and suggesting improvement; consulting with staff and trainers to review the effectiveness of changes.
Depending on the size of the organisation a Quality Control Manager might oversee a team of quality control technicians; proficiency in software packages like Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma is a pre-requisite in the larger businesses.
Production
A Production Manager is responsible for ensuring goods are produced to the right quality, in the right quantity, within budget and to deadline. With the fashion industry now working in a global environment, Production Managers are increasingly responsible for the management of supply chains that extend across several countries.
Production Managers oversee all parts of the production process, including sampling, logistics and quality control. To pull together the disparate strands that brings a concept to market calls for close collaboration with in-house designers, sales teams, buyers, suppliers and quality control.
Responsible for collating orders from retail and wholesale customers, Production Managers liaise with suppliers, many of whom are based overseas, to negotiate price, delivery times and ethical standards. Wholly accountable for the planning, monitoring and altering of the ensuing production schedule, the Production Manager can spend lengthy periods on the factory floor, overcoming production-related issues like machine faults.
Visual merchandising
Visual merchandising is the art of implementing effective design ideas to increase store traffic and sales volume. It is a tool to achieve sales and targets, a tool to enhance merchandise on the floor, and a mechanism to communicate to a customer and influence his decision to buy. Visual merchandising uses season based displays to introduce new arrivals to customers, and thus increase conversions through a planned and systematic approach by displaying stocks available.
Visual merchandising is not a science; there are no absolute rules. It is more like an art in the sense that there are implicit rules but that these also exist to be broken for striking effects. The main principle of visual merchandising is that it is intended to increase sales, which is not the case with a "real" art.
Michael Page specialises in recruiting those specialists who control the strategic development and implementation of visual merchandise policy.
Store design
Store design is focused on maximising the commercial return from a defined retail space, through new store development or refit/refresh programs. A good store designer studies customer and competitor trends, to define and implement the most effective store environment.
This role provides an interface between the construction and retail operation functions and helps to deliver developments on time. They help to shape the strategic customer proposition by looking at a wide variety of factors: display fixtures, lighting, signage, product adjacencies, customer flow and overall holistic environment.
Graphic Design
Graphic Designers focus on the production of marketing collateral, environmental graphic, books and magazines, corporate identity and branding, film titling and multimedia interfaces. The level of creative input will vary dependent upon the experience of the Designer and the approach of the agency/company. A more senior designer may direct the work of several junior designers and deliver a design solution from concept to completion. Within this field the ability to “multi task” is vital as they will often be producing high quality artwork across several projects using Adobe InDesign/QuarkXPress, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat.
Studio Manager
Accountable for the operational management of design and production teams, with responsibility for overseeing and managing a high-quality service. Duties include reviewing schedules and keeping studio job boards current, establishing internal project goals, assigning projects, resourcing staff, ensuring smooth workflow, writing and distributing detailed project schedules, overseeing quality control and co-ordinating release of projects as necessary.
Web Design/Development
Will have a strong creative appreciation, combined with technical knowledge and be someone who can make new and exciting things happen. Candidates will be steeped in relevant technologies including HTML 4.x,XHTML, CSS 2, XML, XSL, Javascript and at least one industry-class Content Management System. In addition to this front-end work there are also specific Flash Developers who create multimedia rich websites, CD-Roms, marketing presentations, product tutorials, web content and video. They will use Macromedia Flash in conjunction with other popular design and development tools such as Photoshop, After Effects, Dreamweaver, 3D Studio Max, HTML and Javascript to help create final output.
Artworker- Responsible for developing design concepts from creative leads. Artworkers must demonstrate a good level of design experience and knowledge with proven skills to evolve ideas using desktop publishing applications, e.g. Photoshop, QuarkXPress, InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat. Typically requires a design qualification with specialised training in desktop publishing software.
Artworker
Responsible for developing design concepts from creative leads. Artworkers must demonstrate a good level of design experience and knowledge with proven skills to evolve ideas using desktop publishing applications, e.g. Photoshop, QuarkXPress, InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat. Typically requires a design qualification with specialised training in desktop publishing software.
