What is a Textile Designer?

A textile designer creates print or pattern designs for textiles (a.k.a. fabric). These are often repeating patterns where the artwork is designed to repeat over and over (also referred to as “all over prints” or AOP), or can be larger prints that are “placed” on the fabric.

Here are other titles for “textile designer” and what they mean.

What Is A Fabric Designer?

Fabric = textiles, so this is essentially the same as a textile designer. In the industry (fashion or home decor), you hardly ever hear “fabric designer” – most of the time when I hear this, I know it’s someone who doesn’t have as much experience. So pro tip, start calling yourself a textile designer instead!

What Is A Fashion Textile Designer?

When you add the qualifier of the word “fashion,” that means you’re designing textiles specifically for the fashion industry. This is as opposed to designing for all sorts of fabrics which could include home decor, interiors, industrial, automotive, etc.

What Is A Print Designer?

A more general term, print designer can mean a million different things. “Prints” can be anything from repeating patterns to placed prints to any kind of artwork that is “printed.” Like “fabric designer,” I most often hear this used by people who have less industry experience, or by people who are more of a graphic artist. Instead, most professionals who design prints for a variety of materials (as opposed to textiles only) will call themselves surface pattern designers.

What Is A Surface Pattern Designer? 

A surface pattern designer is like a textile designer, but it’s way more broad and not specific to textiles or fabric. As the name suggests, the artwork goes on “surfaces” – which can be any and everything from notebooks to tissue boxes to carpet (think hotels or casinos!) and of course textiles.

So, What Kind Of “Designer” Should You Be?

It’s up to you to decide what kind of prints / patterns / repeats you want to create and what industries you want to offer them to. The 3 steps to becoming some sort of “designer” are very similar no matter what kind of designer you want to be. If you’re not sure, the different ways to sell your prints and patterns may help you decide what industry you want to focus on.

SPOILER: The best path to success as a textile designer is by freelancing (not by selling your designs on Spoonflower or trying to get work licensed). The truth is there are very few textile design jobs, it’s nearly impossible to sell your own designs, and the print agency model is a bit exploitative.

3 Steps To Become A Textile Designer

Becoming a textile designer doesn’t take a lot of time, and it’s not super complicated. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn on your own instead of going to fashion school.

The 3 steps to becoming a textile designer are learning basics of textile design & print techniques, creating a portfolio, and selling your textile designs.

Step 1: Learn The Basics (Even Without a Degree)

You don’t need a fashion degree to become a successful textile designer. What you do need are the right creative and technical skills that brands actually look for.

Learn How to Create Prints and Repeats

Your designs can be hand-drawn, painted, collaged, or created digitally using Illustrator (vector) or Photoshop (raster). You don’t need to master every medium – just pick a style that fits your creativity and run with it.

No matter what your aesthetic is, learning how to create seamless repeating patterns is essential. Brands expect production-ready repeats at scale. You’ll want to get comfortable with the tools that help you do that – usually Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

Understand Fabrics and Print Techniques

You don’t need to know every kind of fabric that exists, but understanding how artwork will print differently on a tightly woven fabric (think a button down shirt) vs jute or burlap (think a coffee bean bag) will be important.

A quick read on different fabric types and their qualities will help. Better yet, take a trip to your local fabric store and notice the qualities of different textiles and what they are called.

Beyond fabric types, you also need to understand different print types. Two of the big ones are screen printing and sublimation printing. Screen printing is where each color is printed directly through a screen that the artwork has been burned into. This works great for minimal color vector artwork. This is compared to sublimation printing where colors don’t matter – you can print unlimited colors, like photorealistic florals. 

There are more print types beyond this, and you don’t have to know them all, but it’s valuable to have a high level understanding. Because print types can affect the type of artwork, the production budget, and what factories you can work with. 

Here’s an article to get you started on understanding the 6 different types of fabric printing.

You Can Learn This All Without Going to Fashion School

There are many online courses that will teach you the essential skills in a fraction of the time and for a LOT cheaper.

One of our students inside Freelance Accelerator: from Surviving to Thriving (FAST), Katerina Dimovska from Macedonia, is crushing it in her career. Katerina didn’t have any experience in textiles (and didn’t get a textile degree), yet in her first year freelancing as a textile designer, she earned more than she had in her previous year as a full-time employee.

Better yet, Katerina is happier in her career than she’s ever been.

“For the first time in my life, I feel like I am on the right path.” – FAST grad Katerina Dimovska, textile designer, Macedonia

What Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Textile Designer?

What brands care most about is that your aesthetic matches theirs. They are going to instantly judge you by your designs. 

Does your portfolio match what they want to create? If you visually connect with a brand, most of them couldn’t care less about fashion school or experience on your resume.

Beyond that, having a base understanding of the different types of printing techniques and how they will translate to different fabrics will be valuable. And last, understanding how to technically prepare the artwork for production and manufacturing is really helpful. This may include prepping one repeat tile at the correct scale and adding color callouts.

If you want to take some specific courses, many of my students have good things to say about Bonnie Christine and Leslie Kenehan.

Step 2: Create A Textile Design Portfolio

You’ve got about 8-seconds to grab someone’s attention with your portfolio, so you need to make sure you show them what they want to see, and nothing else.

Whether you’re applying for a full-time job, pitching freelance clients, or working with a print studio, one thing stays the same: your portfolio should be focused and visually aligned with who you want to work with.

Tailor Your Portfolio to Match the Brand or Buyer

Instead of trying to impress everyone, only show the work that matches the aesthetic of the brand or studio you’re targeting.

• Applying to a home decor brand? Show your prints on mockups of cushions or bedding.
• Pitching to a kidswear brand? Highlight whimsical or playful prints.
• Reaching out to a studio or agent? Show more range, but still keep it cohesive.

If you work across multiple aesthetics (e.g., kidswear + florals), you can create separate PDF portfolios or organize your website into clear categories.

What to Include in Your Textile Design Portfolio

You only need:

• 3–5 print collections, each with 3–5 coordinated designs
• Mockups of your prints on products. You can create these using free tools – just google “3D fabric mockup [leggings / bed spread / etc].” You can also do mockups in flats using Adobe Illustrator.

Bonus tip: PDF portfolios are perfectly fine. You don’t need a fancy website to get started.

Here are two examples from successful students inside our Freelance Accelerator: from Surviving to Thriving (FAST) Program.

Lucia Sanguinetti-Jonescheit (Instagram) is a baby and kids textile designer based in Germany. Lucia began freelancing because she had 2 young boys at home and she didn’t want to do the 9-5 grind anymore. She has plenty of work and is earning $60/hour as a freelance textile designer.

Katerina Dimovska (LinkedIn) is a textile designer from Macedonia. She didn’t go to school for textiles and didn’t have any industry experience doing repeats. Yet after losing her tech pack job during the pandemic, she decided she wanted to pursue her passion of painting and designing. She launched her freelance textile design career and focused on working with brands that match her aesthetic. In her first year of freelancing, she already out-earned her in-house income when she was doing tech packs.

Want to License or Work With a Print Studio?

If your goal is to license your work or collaborate with a studio or agency, your portfolio needs to show a broader range. Studios often sell to many different types of clients, so variety helps.

However, just know: many print studios operate on specific models – you create prints first, and only get paid if they sell. It’s not the most sustainable path, which is why many designers prefer working directly with brands as freelancers.

The print studio business model is pretty exploitative. Most of them require designers to create a bunch of prints, and only when one sells does the designer get paid. I chatted with one of my students who told me her studio required 4 print designs a week! She told me that even if all of them sold (which is near impossible), she would still be making a really low wage. She “quit” that studio and now works with brands directly as a freelancer, only designing what they pay her for.

Need More Help With Your Textile Design Portfolio?

Check out my free fashion portfolio guide – it includes exactly what to include, how many projects you need, and why simple PDF portfolios work great.

Step 3: Sell Your Textile Designs

You can sell your textile designs and make money by working full-time, licensing your artwork, collaborating with print studios, selling independently online, or freelancing. Some really experienced textile designers do a little bit of everything, like Michelle Fifis, founder of Pattern Observer who I interviewed on my podcast.

🎧 008: Freelance Textile Designer: How to Have A Successful Career with Michelle Fifis

Here are the pros and cons of each option:

Option 1: Selling Your Textile Designs Online (Spoonflower, Patternbank, Zazzle Etc)

It sounds dreamy: upload your prints and earn passive income while you sleep. The reality? These platforms are super saturated, and payouts are low.

For example:

• Spoonflower pays 10%—so $1 on a $10 fabric sale.
• Patternbank offers 50%, but requires approval and still has 75k+ competing designs.

To make real money, you’d need to upload hundreds of high-quality prints consistently. For most designers, that adds up to pennies per hour.

Pros:

• Low barrier to entry and easy to get started
• No creative limitations – design whatever you want
• Passive income, a way to diversify your income

Cons:

• Platforms are saturated, so it’s very hard to get discovered
• Must create large quantities of work
• Depending on the platform, payouts can be pretty small

Option 2: Working Full-Time Under a Brand

A full-time job comes with stability (ish) – regular pay, benefits, and team experience. But employment isn’t the most stable thing ever. Because when you lose your job, *poof* you’ve lost everything.

Being a textile design employee also means you’ll be creatively limited. You won’t get to design any and everything you want, but instead are confined to only creating that one brand’s aesthetic. It can feel restrictive.

Most brands also don’t hire in-house textile designers unless they’re extremely print-heavy. At the time of writing, Indeed only has 419 jobs in the entire US and just 39 in the state of Colorado. That is VERY few jobs.

Compare that to 2787 fashion design jobs in the US, and 23 in Denver alone (not the entire state).

There is very limited opportunity to work full-time as a textile designer! And when 

Pros:

• “Stability” with a regular paycheck and benefits
• Learn about other parts of the process & industry

Cons:

• Creative limitations
• No freedom / flexibility in life
• No diversification – if you lose your job, you lose everything
• Very limited opportunity

Option 3: Licensing Your Textile Designs

You can make a good bit of money this way. But it’s not easy to find brands who are willing to license, and a lot of designers have agents that rep them.

You also have to consider things like exclusive vs non-exclusive, copyrights, royalties, time + quantity + product limitations, and more.

If you want to learn more about licensing your textile designs, here are some resources.

• Elizabeth Silver, surface pattern designer with tons of licensing advice
• Art Licensing, hasn’t been updated in quite some time but still valuable info
• Everything You Need to Know, a brief yet good overview of some details
• How to License Your Art, a paid guide that seems legit

Pros:

• You can make a good bit of cash upon initial license
• There is opportunity for subsequent payouts based on use

Cons:

• It’s complicated
• It’s hard to find brands (you’ll likely need an agent)

Option 4: Work With Print Studios & Agencies 

Print studios act as middlemen between you and brands. You provide a lot of artwork, and they try to sell it. You only get paid when something sells.

Some studios even require you to create several prints per week with no guarantee of pay. It’s why many designers say it’s unsustainable.

Pros:

• They do the selling for you

Cons:

• You may be required to pump out a ton of artwork
• You only get paid when something sells

Option 5: Selling Artwork as A Freelance Textile Designer

Taking control of your own career and selling your textile designs as a freelancer is, in my opinion, the best way to do it. You get to work with brands you love, set your own schedule, and get paid for all the work you do. 

Let’s compare freelancing as a textile designer to the other options we’ve explored for selling your work and making money.

FREELANCING vs SELLING ONLINE (Spoonflower, print studio, etc.)

As a freelance textile designer, you don’t have to create a bunch of work in advance and *hope* it sells (like you do on Spoonflower or if you work for a print studio). Instead, you create a portfolio that speaks to a specific aesthetic and find brands that match that aesthetic. 

Those brands hire you as a freelancer, and you create custom artwork specifically for their project. Then they pay you for that artwork. Think about that compared to pumping out 10 prints a week and crossing your fingers that one of them sells!

FREELANCING vs LICENSING YOUR WORK

It’s much easier (and much less complicated) to get started as a freelance textile designer than to get your artwork licensed. You don’t have to worry about any of the complicated stuff like royalties or exclusivity or copyright. As a freelancer, the brand hires you, you create custom artwork for them, they pay you. Done and done.

There’s no middleman taking a commission, and you’re in control of who you work with.

FREELANCING vs WORKING IN-HOUSE AS AN EMPLOYEE

As a freelancer, you have the opportunity to work with multiple brands. So your creative opportunities are unlimited. And while you don’t have the “security” of a full-time job, your income is diversified. If you lose one client, you still have others to support you while you find more work.

Plus, it’s much easier to find a new client for a textile design project than it is to find a new full-time job. Because as I mentioned earlier, there just aren’t that many employment opportunities!

To summarize, here are the pros and cons of being a freelance textile designer:

Pros:

• Work on a variety of projects you love
• You get all the $ (no middleman)
• Get paid for all the work you create
• Freedom and flexibility in life / schedule / location

Cons:

• You have to find the clients (there are easy strategies)
• Manage the selling / biz stuff (much simpler than you think)

Freelancing Is Your Best Opportunity To Make Money As A Textile Designer

As a freelance textile designer, you can make the most money the fastest. Ok…let me be clear about that. Nothing in fashion – or life! – about making money is fast (or easy). You will still have to put in the work, and it can still take time. But, it’s going to be much faster than making money all the other ways.

That’s because you don’t have to sit around and wait for brands to find your artwork amongst the millions of other designers on Spoonflower or Patternbank. And you don’t have to pump out a bunch of work hoping it sells through a print studio.

If You Want To Sell Textile Designs To Companies For Manufacturing, Freelancing Is Your Best Option

Cut out the middleman and take control of your textile design career. Go directly to the brands so you can create custom artwork for them. They’ll put your designs into production and handle all the manufacturing.

So, Where do you Find Freelance Textile Clients & Job Opportunities? 

There are a ton of textile design opportunities out there. You can find them on UpWork, like some of our Freelance Accelerator: from Surviving to Thriving (FAST) grads Katerina and Lucia have done. You can also find brands and pitch directly.

How Much Money Can You Make As A Freelance Textile Designer?

You can make a lot of money as a textile designer. Depending on what route you take, your income potential (and how fast you get there) will vary. It will also depend on where you live.

Lucia, from Germany, charges $60/hour and is fully booked. That means she gets to choose projects she loves! 

Katerina lives in Macedonia, where the wages are much different. She is charging $20/hour, but at that rate, she out-earned her previous industry salary. $20/hour in Macedonia is a lot!

Another textile design student of mine, who prefers to remain anonymous, charges $850+ for one print, and $99/hour for additional work like specs, mockups and colorways. She lives in the US.

Your rate will vary based on a lot of factors. But the bottom line is that the fastest way to make the most money is as a freelance textile designer.

Learn Step-By-Step How To Become A Freelance Textile Designer

If you’re serious about building your career as a freelance textile designer, you probably want a little more than this guide.

You can check out my free Ultimate Guide to Freelancing in Fashion.

You can also learn more about Freelance Accelerator: from Surviving to Thriving (FAST). It’s the only step-by-step freelance program for the fashion + textile industry.