Technical Textiles Designer Careers

Work Environment:

Technical textiles designers are included in development and design of fabrics and fibers manufactured chiefly for their functional attributes and technical performance, instead of features, like style or color.

Being a technical textiles designer, you can work with fabrics and fibers for various uses, such as:

• medical fabrics, such as artificial ligaments and allergy free bedding utilized into prosthetics
• construction fabrics, like carbon fiber coverings utilized to cover buildings to guard against environmental-damage, e.g. earthquakes or winds

• clothing fabrics, like bullet proof, waterproof, fire retardant, or heat resistant fabrics
• woven-fabric structures utilized in production of aircraft and automobiles

You'd work along with production, research and development teams to develop new ideas or to a client brief. Your duties would comprise:

• writing up cost estimates and technical-reports
• researching latest technologies and methods
• utilizing CAD (Computer-Aided Design) program to generate various designs
• recognizing material's availability and suitability
• creating prototypes of product
• developing products to fulfill performance requirements
• evaluating technical-performance requirements and executing testing
• recording and documenting results of test

Qualification, Education and Experience:

Employers would prefer you to hold a related degree. It's essential to look into content of degree-course, not every textile-design course will provide you technical knowledge and skills that companies are searching for. Few training courses focus mainly on knowledge and skills for fashion-industry.

The institutes given below are those with a tradition into textiles sectors and are acknowledged by companies:

• DeMontfort University
• Manchester University
• Heriot Watt University

You can utilize a course in textiles-technology as an entrance mode in technical-textiles design. Related courses comprise following qualifications:

• BSc in Textile Technology and Science
• BSc in Textile Technology

Training Details:

You'd get training at the work, which is essential to improve your technical skills and knowledge. You'll improve your existing abilities and learn new skills, while working as a technical textiles designer.

You can also gain skills and knowledge by following ways:

• training into skills, like IT skills, languages, management, presentation skills and leadership
• accomplishing qualifications provided by TI (Textile-Institution), with its Licentiate ship, Fellowship and Associateship

You could stay updated with newest developments in textiles fields by journals issued by TI, and attending programs of TI that draw together academics, professionals and practitioners working in textile field.

You can enroll with regional societies, comprising Huddersfield Textile-Society and Bradford Textile-Society.

You might have chance to do research within universities which have specialism in textiles.

Skills and knowledge:

• problem resolving abilities
• good design-skills
• fine record keeping and writing abilities
• thorough understanding of textile field, comprising textiles chemistry, markets, materials, and processes
• research and development abilities
• fabric construction and technical abilities
• project management abilities
• fine concentration skills
• excellent communication abilities
• comprehensive knowledge of textile-structures
• IT-skills

Salary and Other Benefits:

• Initial remuneration for technical textiles designer can be about $17,000 for a year.
• Experienced technical textiles designer can get around $26,000 to $36,000.

Working Conditions:

You'd work weekly for about 38 hours. Though, you may have to work for additional hours to meet targets.

You'd work within a lab environment and office. You'd also employ time at factory floor, and voyage to attend exhibitions and conferences.

Different Opportunities:

This technical-textiles field covers different kinds of textiles, given as below:

• agricultural
• clothing
• defense
• automotive
• medical
• aerospace
• construction

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