POWERING THE DESIGN FUNCTION FOR CUSTOMISED APPAREL AND SPORTSWEAR PRODUCTION WITH CorelDRAW
“Digital technologies now deliver the designer greater creative freedom, alongside transparency and traceability. Software solutions now simplify creative function and enhance design performance, production, and manufacturing clarity”.
As the workload for each product becomes ever more personalised and delivery timescales almost instant - we need to set a new benchmark for product creation.”
As the progress of digitisation accelerates across all manufacturing markets, the commercial breadth and the required skill set of the product designer is constantly evolving.
Across all sectors - Fashion, Sportswear, Interior Decor and Industrial Apparel, the speed of change and the demand for creative agility is running parallel with the demand for customisation.
Digital technologies now deliver the designer greater creative freedom, alongside transparency and traceability. Software solutions now simplify creative function and enhance design performance, production, and manufacturing clarity.
As the workload for each product becomes ever more personalised and delivery timescales almost instant - we need to set a new benchmark for product creation and take a close look at how the design function is wired across the production network.
The creative workflow from design through to production must remain both efficient and sustainable. To do so, the designer needs to work in one digital workspace, not multiple applications across multiple vendors, software needs to be seamless. The desktop uncluttered.
In a fast-paced design studio, it is often difficult to stay on track of and stay up to date with the latest technology.
Equally in large manufacturing businesses and design brands, legacy data systems often slow the speed of change simply by the sheer magnitude of digitisation required. However, post pandemic, it’s no longer a case of where to start but when? The answer is now.
Over the last 2 years, the digitisation of manufacturing has been forced to accelerate in part due to irreversible changes in consumer buying behaviour and supply chain issues, but also as a direct result of the demand for customised product design and on-demand manufacturing.
As consumers we now demand exclusivity, we are rejecting mass production and now seek a personalised experience. Customised production is now standard practice regardless of industry sector. We are literally now accustomed to customisation. But on the whole, our design and manufacturing practices are predominantly still manual. We don’t connect the dots and that’s a problem for any production cycle.
Across the digital spectrum, over 80% of printed textile production is still manufactured using rotary production. Industry forecasts predict a tipping point, and that this shift is accelerating. But there is still a long way to go before we swing the scales convincingly towards digital production.
But there are industrial pockets where that’s not the case:
One industry where the digitisation process is well underway is the Sportswear Industry. Set for huge growth, a recent report from McKinsey & co estimated that by 2025 the global market would be worth 395 billion euros, with a CAGR of 8.9%.
As an industry - much of that value resides amongst the behemoths, the mega sports brands with worldwide distribution. However as digital technologies have evolved, the industry has also witnessed a massive growth in personalised, customised sportswear and many new entrepreneurial businesses.
Thanks to the adoption of digital textile printing technologies, the sportswear apparel market provides a good example of how software can build efficiency and creativity for customised production at any scale, for large or small volumes.
Here, software solutions such as CorelDRAW underpin the creative function of the design process and offer seamless efficiency for customised printed manufacturing at speed.
The sportswear sector is a diverse marketplace.
From small print runs for team shirts, uniforms and specialised performance sports, through to mass produced customised shirts for international events the sector is highly customised and growing at a phenomenal pace.
The sportswear designer must create at speed whilst still retaining originality and accuracy of print. Scaling and manipulating design files at speed, with no loss of quality. It is the simplest of tasks and yet it’s here where quality is often lost. CorelDRAW’s Vector-based files speed up the process saving swiftly with no loss of quality, and with a minimal load on any manufacturer’s server.
Corel PowerTRACE™ bitmap-to-vector trace feature - speeds up the process of transferring physical sketches to digital, allowing the designer to quickly convert sketches or simple graphics to vector-based artwork for final alteration, scaling and colouring all in the same digital workspace.
Beyond the design phase, CorelDRAW also simplifies the route to production with its system of saving multiple design iterations into an all-encompassing reference file which includes, not only the graphics file, but also technical drawings, measurements, and instructions.
The reference file can then be integrated with a product data management system to allow designers and garment technicians to work on the same data in different locations. Connecting the digital dots.
Corel software underpins 100,000’s of independent designers, commercial studios and production facilities. Regardless of scale, their software helps businesses specialising in sports apparel from cycling to ice hockey, and beyond.
All continue to benefit from CorelDRAW’s unique features, which allow apparel customisation and personalisation to be achieved in a timely and efficient digital workflow will no loss of creativity, in one workspace.
