Karolful Karolful

Kidswear Fashion

2014–2017

PATTERN DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION

For the past 7 years I have been working in the kidswear fashion industry under the creative direction of Noo-Studio. Initially I was employed as an illustrator but quickly developed a passion for patterns. Hence, I began gaining experience as a surface designer through pattern development and design, exploration of drawing techniques and learning about file preparation for print production. I now continue to work with Noo-Studio, producing novel textile designs for upcoming SS and AW Collections as well as collaborating on new channels for our creative outputs.

A selection of designs produced for different kidswear brands based in China in years 2014–2017. 

As a part of Noo-Stu­dio I have been involved in the pro­duc­tion of numer­ous sea­son­al cloth­ing col­lec­tions for new­borns (0–9 months), baby (1–3 years old) and kids (3–6 years old). In the course of devel­op­ing designs for these col­lec­tions I have gained valu­able insights into work­ing com­mer­cial­ly and respond­ing cre­ative­ly to a giv­en brief’s require­ments. I am now high­ly skilled at design­ing pat­terns with­in the broad­er con­text of a col­lec­tion’s theme, clothes set and brand colour palette, as well as util­is­ing pre-exist­ing char­ac­ters and elements.

Our Process

At the begin­ning of the design process we pro­vide the client with ini­tial analy­sis and advice on sea­son­al and mar­ket trends, before work­ing with them to for­mu­late a cre­ative solu­tion that will suit their col­lec­tion and its require­ments. We then work on real­is­ing this solu­tion through devel­op­ment and revi­sion phas­es, offer­ing   a range of ver­sa­tile alter­na­tives for a giv­en pat­tern design (e.g. in terms of its arrange­ment and colour options) before agree­ing to a final ver­sion that suits the clien­t’s pref­er­ences and con­text. We take into con­sid­er­a­tion not only the design itself, but also a cost effec­tive tech­nique of print pro­duc­tion. Through our expe­ri­ences we have become high­ly agile and flex­i­ble as a team and are adept at cus­tomis­ing our work­flow whilst design­ing and revis­ing in order to meet the spe­cif­ic needs of our clients.

All cloth­ing mock­ups pre­sent­ed here are pro­vid­ed cour­tesy of Noo-Stu­dio and are used for visu­al­i­sa­tion pur­pos­es only.

Tailored Design

The work I chose to show­case here focuss­es pre­dom­i­nant­ly on hand-drawn, unique designs based on my own draw­ings set with­in the dig­i­tal con­text. How­ev­er, in prac­tice my work­ing were often much more diverse in nature in order to meet the needs of the col­lec­tion. This often involved com­ing up with a cre­ative mixed media solu­tion, incor­po­rat­ing var­i­ous tech­niques and themes. As a result, final designs were often a com­bi­na­tion of my draw­ings set against pre-exist­ing or pho­to­graph­ic ele­ments. In addi­tion, we also pro­duced pat­terns based exclu­sive­ly on pho­tog­ra­phy and typography.

Working with different age group

We always make sure we design appro­pri­ate­ly for age group, sim­pli­fy­ing and con­tex­tu­al­is­ing designs as required. In kidswear fash­ion amongst many trends, we tend to work with themes of ani­mals, char­ac­ters, flo­rals, tex­tures, typog­ra­phy, nau­ti­cal and botan­ics. How­ev­er, the broad­er con­text of the whole col­lec­tion has always inspired me to explore nov­el, alter­na­tive approach­es to these.

These designs are always cus­tom tai­lored in order to cre­ate an unique visu­al expres­sion of the brand. Our main aim has always been to expand the brand recog­ni­tion, improve prod­uct struc­ture com­plex­i­ty and address brands’ posi­tion with­in a pre-defined mar­ket niche.

Illustration

My first work with­in the kidswear indus­try was pri­mar­i­ly as an illus­tra­tor and whilst I have diver­si­fied over the years I still draw upon this exper­tise reg­u­lar­ly. Equal­ly, many of the col­lec­tions that I have been involved in have pre­sent­ed spe­cif­ic cre­ative chal­lenges, for exam­ple kidswear illus­tra­tions need to be sim­pli­fied and adjust­ed to suit print and colour-palette restric­tions as well as the tar­get age-group. These chal­lenges have enabled me to adapt to using more var­ied illus­tra­tive tech­niques and come up with a vocab­u­lary of medi­ums to call upon. Dur­ing this devel­op­ment process I often enjoyed com­bin­ing tra­di­tion­al and dig­i­tal solu­tions (for exam­ple mix­ing pen­cil and dig­i­tal draw­ing, draw­ing on pho­to­graph­ic rasters and fil­ters etc)  Here, I have cho­sen a selec­tion of var­i­ous per­son­al favourites that we devel­oped for both kids and new­born col­lec­tions over the years.