Quick Design Sketch vs Fashion Illustration

hey hey party people in this video I'm going to dissect and deep dive into the differences between quick design sketches and fall fashion illustrations and answer a ton of frequently asked questions along the way the designs I use in this video are examples I created for the book I'm currently working on so for more information on those sketches you're just gonna have to buy them a book whenever that comes out I have no idea anyway without further ado let's go over the who what when where why and how a fashion design quick stitches vs. full fashion illustrations let's start with the what is each and who does each and why are they two separate things design sketches are quick sketches to basically jot down the idea in your head I call it visual note-taking in the industry people call these sketches rookies and they're fast they're often done with a template for even faster sketching they are either not colored or colored really fast not very neatly no one really cares about you know shadows and highlights and things with quick design sketches it's about it's gonna be pink on the top and blue on the bottom here the fabric swatches like that yeah and you can do quick sketches on the figure like I'm doing on the screen or you can do them in flat form whichever allows you to work the most efficiently quick design sketches they're really fast their process sketches they're rough they are not nice final illustrations that you put into your portfolios however I encourage you to make rookie books for your portfolio yeah what is a croaky book croaky books are when you gather up all the quick design sketches you drew while working on the project and you bind them together into a book it does not have to be the most gorgeous book you can get a sip a professional bind being at one of those office supply printing places like Kinkos or OfficeMax and there are tutorials online on how to stitch books together do not overthink the croaky book it is literally just all your rough sketches for one specific design project put together with the cover and then put in your portfolio with the rest of the project during job interviews you can show companies your process you can post some of your best process sketches as part of your design project on your online portfolio ok so like you can have your mood board your colors your fabric your figures your flats maybe a tech pack and then at the end you know some of your best rough sketches for that project croaky books are not an essential part of your portfolio but many times design directors I like to see how you crank out ideas what you decided to edit out as not good designs ok that's really telling of a designer what they decided to edit out and how you develop your ideas things like that and when I was in university we were all encouraged to make a cookie book of for each design project so this is not a Zoey specific thing this is something I was taught in university alright let's talk about illustrations full fashion illustrations are finished works and what they look like is completely dependent on the illustrator style and choice of medium they can be loose and gestural or photorealistic and detailed and everything in between full fashion illustrations are done by fashion illustrators and they're used for all kinds of purposes they're used for marketing and advertising campaigns people buy prints as art they're used on greeting cards textile designs all kinds of stuff for advice on how to price your work watch my tips for freelancers video which I'll link below fashion designers also do full illustrations in a few scenarios okay the most common is to have beautiful illustrations in a designer's portfolio beautiful illustrations show-off design and it's faster than making up a whole pattern and cutting and sewing up a whole garment it's like how designers try to choose just the right model to wear clothes on the runway or in photo shoots designers try to illustrate well to show off their designs in the best way possible okay so and this is Mamie important in the beginning of a designer's career and this is when you know designers they don't have a lot of look books or line cheese from previous work experiences so you know your chances are better in design competitions also if you can communicate your ideas better and I have had students get irritated at the idea of learning illustration mainly for the beginning of their careers and I understand but think of it this way and this is true of a lot of different fields you need different skills for each phase of your career and as you get promoted and as you move up you will be using different skills as your job responsibilities change but you have to get those first jobs first and good design communicating illustrations do help your portfolio look better when designers do illustrations their goal is to communicate the design so careful attention should be paid to proportions fabric drink color matching and you know getting the fabric texture right and design details we're basically showing the design as accurately and as beautifully as possible so I call this kind of fashion illustration design communication this is also why I don't like figure poses is that distort or high design elements like arms over the head that ruin tailoring or arms blocking a big part of the torso or a lot of sitting figures like those kinds of figures are better for regular fashion illustration I have two boards on Pinterest one called fashion illustration and one called design communication and the fashion illustration one I show lots of examples of different styles and media you know stuff that's not mine so you can see all the things that you could potentially you know explore on your own the design communication board shows examples of fashion illustration that clearly articulates the design okay and again not my work but just really good examples of how you can beautifully communicate the design clearly and then there are people like me these designer illustrator hybrids who enjoy both and do both for money if you are solely interested in designing and developing your company with your designs you don't need to learn how to do full fashion illustrations you need to learn how to draw flats flats are the technical illustrations of garments and they are drawn as if they are the garment is laying flat on a floor or table I'll link to you my drawing flats playlist in the description box below one time someone asked me if they need a portfolio to show investors or banks to get funding for their business you do not need the kind of portfolio that you would use to get a job at a fashion company with mood boards and stories you need a sound business plan with numbers that make sense to investors and banks you need product pages that look like a simplified tech pack with flats product cost sheets and prototypes of the actual product investors want to hear about your target demographic your customer your profit margin they don't care about how you were inspired by haunted houses in the Victorian next up is when the design process is as follows inspiration and mood board color story fabric choice and then you design shapes and details you learn the long slow involve process in school so that you can do the fast version when you work in the industry learn to walk before you run your design director will decide the mood and vision of the next collection and choose the basic colors and fabrics and give the team the design direction and then the designers working under the creative director will work on their specific design duties generally designers will do a bunch of fast design sketches choose the best sketches go over design logistics of the chosen designs and then do flats in Adobe Illustrator and then later tech backs tech backs get sent to pattern makers to get things made for more information on product development go watch my video how to get clothes made which I'll link below but Zoe can't I just give my pattern maker my quick sketch here's the deal the more precise information you can give to everybody working on your garment the closer the garment is going to look like your design every time you have to make a new sample with Corrections that is a lot of money I don't care how slow you are at flats it's still faster and cheaper than pattern revisions and cutting and sewing a whole new garment full fashion illustrations for illustrators are of course done whenever you know whenever the project comes up and they're done when you receive a commission they're done when you want to add new work to your portfolio and for designers they're done at the end of a design project when you're doing your final boards for your portfolio and as I mentioned before as you gain more industry experience your portfolio which should always consist of your most recent work your portfolio will consist of more things you did at your jobs you know which for most of you will not include illustrations next up how this is a shortcut I learned at school for faster than fast design sketches I like to out croakies very lightly on regular paper and draw directly on top we all did this in university using a template under light weight paper is also fast but this is even faster and for rough design sketches where it doesn't really matter if you can see the armpit through the the top like that kind of thing doesn't matter this is fine if you bought my templates you can lower the opacity in Photoshop and then print it really light like that and then do your fast sketches on top if you decide to add color to your design sketches I prefer to photocopy the black and white sketch and test a few different color ways marker is best for design sketches because they're the fastest way to apply color and dry fast side note what is the best marker brand I literally don't care there are a few good professional quality markers and I use all of them Copic prismacolor blick touch Windsor Newton chart PAC graph it I use all of them I choose the marker that matches by fabric color the closest if I don't have a close enough color I take the fabric swatch with me to the store and I swatch all the brands to pick the closest one as mentioned before full fashion illustrations are finished works and you know I have a million videos on how to develop your own fashion figures and how to render fabric textures here on my channel and go have fun using that search bar I use markers a combination of gouache and watercolor for illustration work I also use ink watercolor pencil watercolor marker on occasion I never use color pencil as a main medium for anything I do because it's too slow for my tastes I only use them for details and texture and for design communication sketches the kind where you know you have to get the buttons correct and the proportions correct and you're really expressing the design I don't use pastel because it's so messy and you know you can't really get detailed with pastel but I do love pastel for large-scale figure drawing my messy you know kind of stressed and I just want to get messy drawings I love pastels for that kind of thing you know for illustrations that have nothing to do with design projects do the whole thing in color pencil do the whole thing in pastels do acrylics and oil paints I don't know don't care I have a playlist called different media that goes over materials in depth which I'll also link below and lastly where the where is obviously where you work whether it's an office or your home office most freelance fashion illustrators work from a home office or studio if it's hard for you to work at home maybe you need to go find yourself a co-working space you know a little tiny corner of a shared office space that you rent by the month or whatnot and uh you know it's pretty obvious but I gotta complete my who what where when why and how tableau right and that is the difference between quick fashion design sketches and full fashion illustrations please give this video a thumbs up if you learned something new today share this video subscribe to this channel click that notification bell and remember I'm doing new videos every first Tuesday of the month and live stream every third Tuesday of the month until I finish my book please check the description box below for links to related videos and all my social media shenanigans alright and you know as with either fashion illustration or quick design sketches it's all about practice hashtag always be practicing hashtag practice not magic hashtag if your first one sucks you're right on track hashtag it's hard because it's hard not because there's anything wrong with you and hashtag perfectionism is stupid yeah and I'll see you in the next video you

Channel: Zoe Hong

Views: 181,319

Rating: 4.9718151 out of 5

Keywords: Zoe Hong, zoehong, zoehongteaches, Zoe Hong Teaches, fashion, fashion design, art, illustration, fashion illustration, sketching, fashion sketching, markers, quick sketch, croquis, fashion portfolio, portfolio, drawing, zoe hong teaches

Id: tjPcYOawByk

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 03 2019