Arts, Design, Media & Creative Industries
Textile Designer
Fabric and material design — strong African tradition
What this life looks like
You create the fabrics that carry culture. Textile Designers design patterns, prints, and woven structures for fabrics used in fashion, interior design, furnishings, and art. Africa has one of the world's richest textile traditions — from kente and kuba cloth to adire and bogolan — and contemporary African textile designers are creating new visual languages that honour these traditions while engaging with global markets.
What she actually does
You research and develop pattern concepts and colourways, create repeat patterns using design software or traditional methods, work with textile mills and printers to produce fabric samples, develop collections for fashion designers, interior brands, or retail markets, and manage the business side of selling your designs to manufacturers and brands.
Where you can work
| Sector | Places in Africa |
|---|---|
| Textile Companies | Vlisco (Dutch/West African prints), Woodin (Ghana), Holland's Wax — major Africa-market fabric producers |
| Fashion Brands | All African fashion brands sourcing original prints — Lagos, Accra, Cape Town designer studios |
| Interior Design | African homeware brands, hotel and restaurant interior design — textiles for furniture and decor |
| Art & Craft | Gallery exhibitions, craft markets, and export to international buyers — growing for authentic African textiles |
Why it matters in Africa
The global fashion industry's growing interest in African prints and patterns, the African homeware and interior design market, and the international art market's appetite for African textiles are all creating commercial opportunities. Designers who can root contemporary design in African visual traditions while producing technically excellent, commercially viable work are building significant careers.
Your pathway in
- Study Textile Design, Fine Art, or Fashion Design at university
- Develop deep knowledge of African textile traditions — research kente, adire, bogolan, shweshwe, and ankara both as cultural objects and design systems
- Master Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for digital print design — most commercial textile design is now produced digitally
- Visit textile factories and printing houses to understand production constraints and possibilities
- Build a portfolio of pattern and print designs and approach fashion designers, homeware brands, or fabric manufacturers
Skills you will need
- Pattern design and repeat construction
- Colour and colourway development
- Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop
- Textile production knowledge
- African textile history
- Business and licensing
A woman in this field
Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye
Nigeria
Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye (affectionately known as "Mama Nike") is a world-renowned, multi-award-winning textile artist and designer. A fifth-generation artisan raised in a lineage of Yoruba craftspeople, she has spent over five decades reviving and preserving traditional Nigerian textile arts, specifically Adire (indigo cloth dyeing), Batik, and Aso-Oke weaving. Lacking formal academic education, her mastery has nonetheless led her to conduct lectures and masterclasses at prestigious global institutions, including Harvard University. She is the founder and director of the Nike Art Centres across Nigeria, which provide free training in traditional crafts to vulnerable young women and artists, and she runs the Nike Art Gallery in Lagos, the largest private art gallery in Africa.
Take your first step
- Design a repeat pattern inspired by a visual element from your cultural tradition — a geometric motif, a plant, or an everyday object
- Research the history of African textiles: the Textile Museum of Greater Washington and the V&A Museum both have excellent online resources on kente, adire, and other traditions
- Visit a fabric market and study the patterns available — try to identify the design elements that make African prints distinctive
- Learn how to create a seamless repeat pattern in Adobe Illustrator using the Pattern tool — this is the fundamental technical skill of commercial textile design
Careers close to this one
- Fashion Designer
- Interior Designer
- Illustrator
- Artist/Visual Artist
- Costume Designer