In the focus area of Textile Design we work with the development of textiles for clothing, interiors and architectural contexts. Generally, the discipline covers tasks where colour, tactile qualities and pattern formation all contribute to establishing form.
Over the past decade, new materials and the access to new analogue and digital tools have expanded the textile designer’s latitude considerably. Today, textile design is a broader and larger area than the basic textile areas of knitting, printing and weaving that the field emerged from. The textile designer does not work within a narrowly defined field of textile techniques but moves across the media and work methods of the textile discipline – from the overall concept to the concrete, tangible solution. A designer specializing in textile often enters into interdisciplinary collaborations with other design specialties where the choice of method and materials is determined by the concept and addressed in a broad spectrum of textile as well as non-textile materials.
Knowledge and skills relating to the textile processes and methods continue to form the basic framework for the textile designer’s work and analysis. Thorough knowledge of materials and technologies link functional properties with aesthetic possibilities, and the innovation in the textile field emerges in the field of tension between these aspects.
Digital technologies create new and more flexible ways of producing and distributing textiles in a national as well as an international context. Large industrial companies can produce individually designed textiles in smaller production runs – on demand – and at the same time it has become easier for entrepreneurs to establish niche productions using their own equipment. The applicability of textiles has also expanded, as components and membranes in architecture, smart textiles in fashion and spatial contexts, and the development in manmade fibres create entirely new product areas and possible expressions for the discipline and the associated research fields.
About the programme
The Textile Design programme typically focuses on either interior design and homes or fashion. The programme gives you the full range of technical, form and strategic competences that make up the textile designer’s general knowledge and command of textile methods and processes.
You acquire principles and methods for developing patterns as a visual language. By working with perception and visual effects you learn to handle spatial form, surfaces, ornaments and repetition – and organizing colours to form complex colour combinations in patterns. You explore textile effects through digital and manual drafting.
You work with print as a medium – colour, light and material – and with idea generation and product development in analogue and digital print techniques and processes, where colour, patterns and materials combine to form a complex and coherent whole.
The structure, material and tactual properties of textile constructions constitute a field where you acquire knowledge about the essential properties of fibres and about turning textile solutions into 2D and 3D form, for example through experiments involving knit and woven materials.
Textiles in relation to context: Based on research and analyses of cultural phenomena, sustainable issues and strategic design, textiles are product developed for spatial, architectural or fashion contexts. You learn about societal, ethical and new technological issues that point toward future possibilities within the field. Visualization, presentation and communication are also key components of Textile Design where you learn to visualize and convey visions, ideas and project solutions.
