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An Introduction to Textile Design 

Uchechukwu J. Ezeemo and Rita Dike  

Introduction 
When discussing textiles, one wonders about the 

meaning and its origin; the word ‘textile’ comes from the 
Latin adjective textilis, meaning ‘woven’ which itself from 
textus, the past participle of the verb textre, to weave. Its 
origin is as old as the existence of man's creation, probably 
made of animals’ skin and help to protect early humans 
from the elements. In textile manufacturing, design is an 
integral part.  

Design is a composition of various elements into 
patterns either in two-dimensional or three-dimensional 
forms. The design elements are line, shape, texture, value, 
space, form, colour, light and possibly time and motion. 
Getlein (2002) describes the elements as satisfying the 
artist’s expressive intent. 

Ogumor (2007) defined design as the art of 
organizing or arranging lines, shapes, motifs, symbols and 
images to communicate an idea. This chapter focuses on 
various aspects and techniques of textile design and 
production. 
 
Textile Design 

Textile design is the process of creating textiles and 
the patterns on them for knitted, woven and printed 
fabrics. A design starts with delineations on paper as 



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thumbnails, which are developed further with brushes and 
colours. In recent times textile patterns are designed in 
vector-based applications on the personal computer. 
Vector graphics is associated with the use of geometrics 
like lines, points and polygons, Beziers, and so on, to 
create digital shapes. Vectors are dependent on 
mathematical equations which were used to create the 
programs (Onwuekwe, 2012:2). The advantage of vectors 
is that the scaling of shapes is unlimited, unlike bitmaps 
which are measured in resolutions. Examples of vector-
based applications are CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator and 
In-Design. When the designs are finalized the designer or 
a textile company will use CAD in the process of creating 
the finished textiles. 

Textile designs are broken down into three major 
types and disciplines in textiles. They have printed textiles, 
woven textiles, and mixed-media textile designs. 
 
Printed textile design  

Printed textile designs are made by the application 
of various printing processes to fabric or cloth and other 
media forms. Textile designs are created in the distinct 
printing process such as resist printing, relief printing, 
screen printing, transfer printing and digital textile 
printing, Dye-sublimation printing. These processes make 
use of various inks and dyes to bring out aesthetic 
imprints and offer repeating patterns, motifs and styles 
onto the fabric or cloth. 



An introduction to textile design 

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Resist printing: this is a batik or tie-dye printing process 
that is blocked with wax or tied with rope to prevent dye 
colour from penetrating through.  
 
Relief printing: a block plate, substrate, or matrix which 
has ink applied to its non-recessed surface is brought into 
contact with the paper. 
 
Screen printing: this is the process of using mesh to ink 
or dye onto a substrate through an area made permeable 
and an area not impermeable by a blocking stencil. Artists 
of Pop culture achieved artistic feats using the screen 
printing process. Warhol was a spearhead of the Pop 
movement. With the aid of the available technology –
screen printing, Warhol was able to gain popularity 
through the mass production of his art all over New York 
and the United States at large (Onwuekwe, Nnoli, and Ezemo, 

2018:9) 

 
Heat transfer printing: This is also known as thermal 
printing thermal-transfer printing and thermal wax transfer 
is a printing process that transfers wax to an object or 
garment. 

Digital textile printing technology, on the other 
hand, is a relatively new design output milestone. It started 
in the 1970s as a possible replacement for analogue screen 
printing. With the development of a dye- sublimation 



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printer in the early 1990s, it became possible to print with 
low-energy sublimation inks and high-energy disperse 
direct inks directly onto textile media, as opposed to print 
dye-sublimation inks on a transfer paper and, in a separate 
process using a heat press, transfers it to the fabric. 
Charles, et al (2017:62). 

Digital textile printing can also be referred to when 
scaling and printing smaller designs onto a garment, (T-
shirt, dresses promotional wear and printing large designs 
onto large format rolls of textile. 

Dye sublimation printing (or dye-sub printing) is a 
computer-based printing technique which heat to transfer 
dye onto materials such as fabric or cloth, plastic cards etc.  
 

 

Plate 1: Printed Textile Design. Source: Zimo textile Studio 

 



An introduction to textile design 

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Woven Textile Design 
These are achieved during interlacing a vertical yarn 

(warp) and horizontal yarn(weft), woven textile designs are 
created by various types of looms, manual and 
mechanized or computerized Jacquard loom. The designs 
created within the wave are done, using various types of 
yarn to achieve variance in texture size, and colour to 
construct a stylized pattern or monochromatic fabric. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plate 2: Woven Textile Design. Source: Fine and Applied Arts, 
Textile section Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

Mixed media Textile Design 
This is produced using embroidery or other various fabric 
manipulation processes such as pleating, appliqué, quilting,  

Embroidery – this is the use of stitches of thread to 
construct designs and patterns on the textile surface. 



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Quilting; is the use of coloured fabric pieces in collage 
and geometric designs formed to achieve various textiles 
of different textures and colours 

Appliqué is the process of utilizing pieces or patches of 
fabric in different shapes and patterns that are sewn or 
glued onto a large piece to form a picture or pattern. 

Pleating is a type of fold that is pressed, that is ironed or 
otherwise heat-set into a sharp crease or impressed, falling 
soft rounded folds, when sewn are called tucks. 

 

Plate 3: Mixed media Textile Design. Source:  
Zimo textile studio 



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Evaluation: 
1. Define Textile design 
2. Explain the types of textile design 
3. What is design 

References 
Ezeemo, U.J (2014). Appropriating, Discarded Materials In 

The Environment As A Medium For Textile 
Production, MFA thesis, Department of Fine and 
Applied Arts , Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. 

Getlein M. (2002) living with Art 6th edition New York, Mc 
Graw-Hill, publishing co. 

“Textile Printing” (2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/ 
wiki/Digital_textile_printing 

“Textile Design” (2022), https://en.wikipedia.org 
/wiki/textile_design 

“Textile” (2022) https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Textile 
Onwuekwe, C.O. (2012), Trends in Illustration: A Digital 

Approach to Large Format Illustrations on Igbo 
Folklore. Mgbakoigba: Journal of African Studies. Vol. 1(1) 

Onwuekwe, C. O., Nnoli B. I. & Ezemo, U.(2018), Exploring 
Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw Applications in 
enhancing Imagery for Screen Printing on T-Shirts. 
AJOFAA 5(2). Awka: Netizens Print Media. 

“Sublimation Printing” (2022) 
https://www.kornit.com/blog/grosssary-item/dye-
sublimation 

 


