Fashion Design Software: 5 Best to use in 2024
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Key notes
- Fashion designers use dedicated fashion design software to help them digitalize their clothing ideas and become more creative.
- Get productivity and manufacturing issues off your mind with the best clothing design software.
- Allow yourself to create truly astonishing patterns and pieces of clothing with the help of the best fashion design software.
- With a creative cloud library, try the fashion industry's favorite software for fashion design.
If you’re into fashion design, it is essential to utilize fashion design software in order to turn your ideas into tangible results.
Nostalgics might find that the digital era has taken its toll on creativity, but as far as we see it, they could not be more wrong. Using a tool instead of pens does not take the charm out of your sketches.
If anything, it helps to create promotable models faster and easier by automating fashion design, markers, patterns, and production planning.
Integrating drawing, vector graphics, CAD software, and even ERP software, these solutions are meant to streamline the processes and take a weight off fashion designers’ shoulders.
The tools allow them to focus on what is really important, the product itself instead of wrapping their heads around productivity or manufacturing related issues.
Taking your samples into the digital space means accurate processes, error-proof garment manufacturing and rapid decision making across the organization.
That being said, how to pick your weapon of choice or in this case, fashion design software? We have highlighted the top picks for you below.
What is the best fashion and apparel design software?
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator enables you to create stunning clothing designs with easy access to amazing tools, including images, colors, filters, textures and much more.
Get any effect you want by applying layers and filters to your textile designs and create unique patterns seamlessly with tile, rotating and scaling graphics as needed.
Save your artwork to the Creative Cloud Library to have it at hand whenever and apply your textiles to a fashion sketch or croquis that you can make yourself or pick one from the pattern library.
Let’s quickly go through its key features:
- Fashion Design (professional tools that allow you to obtain any effect)
- CAD Tools
- Fashion Illustrations
- Pattern Layout / Print / Cut (create unique patterns seamlessly)
- Presentation Tools
- Color Matching (with enhanced functionalities)
- Creative Cloud Library (to keep all your precious artwork at hand at all times)
Adobe Illustrator
Create amazing clothing design with the industry-leading software for fashion design, Adobe Illustrator.CorelDRAW
From manufacturing to engineering, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is enjoyed by diverse designers, industries, and businesses worldwide and the apparel and textile industry makes no exception.
CorelDRAW is the most popular vector design software in the professional fashion design industry, with many fashion designers using it to create their designs.
Whether you’re into embroidery, direct-to-garment printing or apparel, CorelDRAW has all the tools you need to produce and output designs for the fashion industry.
Let’s quickly go through its key features:
- Shape drawing tools and shaping options ( ellipse, polygon, rectangle, weld, trim, etc.)
- Vector illustration and layout
- Image editing and pixel-based design program
- CorelDRAW app (online vector illustration and graphic design in the web browser)
- PowerTRACE (AI-powered bitmap-to-vector tracing included in the CorelDRAW app)
CorelDRAW
Create amazing fashion design with an AI-powered software with shape drawing tools and shaping options.C-DESIGN Fashion
C-DESIGN Fashion accompanies you throughout the clothing creation process. It not only allows you to create fashion, but also takes care of the development lifecycle from design to production.
With a complete and intuitive user interface, professional features and enhancements, it is definitely one of the most advanced fashion design software on the market.
C-DESIGN takes on the complete development process using clear and specific technical files to include materials information, measurement chart, color matching, labeling and much more.
Let’s quickly go through its key features:
- Fashion Illustrations
- Color Matching (advanced features and enhancements)
- Fabric Matching (advanced features and enhancements)
- Technical files creation (to include materials information, measurement chart and many others)
- Design Tools (latest generation design tools available)
- Technical drawing tools
- Import your drawings
PatternSmith
PatternSmith is an award-winning software for textile pattern creation and management that provides apparel businesses with templates, 2D or 3D drafting, editing, and nesting solutions.
Intuitive and easy to use, PatternSmith features industry-leading capabilities making it simple to execute patterns of all types thanks to embedded help files tutorials.
Specifically built for textile patterns, the tool enables you to create, manage, and nest patterns, import files from other systems and export files to your cutting machine.
Let’s quickly go through its key features:
- Full 2D CAD pattern drafting and editing (geometric creation tools, textile-specific entities like notches, seams, anchors and editing tools with previews)
- Automated pattern clean-up
- Custom add-ons
- Keep all patterns in an organized project file
- File Import / Export
- Streamlined Order Processing
- Material Library
TUKATECH
TUKATECH covers the digital fashion design industry with two amazing products TUKAcad and TUKA3D that fit manufacturers and designers of any size.
The best part is that it includes audio and video tutorials for every tool in its portfolio, thus ensuring easy usage and maximizing results.
TUKAcad is an innovative apparel design software with which you can create advanced patterns, grading, and markers to streamline your production process.
Let’s quickly go through its key features:
- Pattern-making and grading (multiple-size and angle grading for curved contours)
- Integration of artwork and logos
- Block libraries with master grading
- Automatic grading update with pattern changes
- Marker making (manual or automatic)
- Edit or alter patterns while making markers
If that did not cover it, take a look at TUKA3D.
As the manufacturer puts it, this software is meant to design, develop and deliver and it allows you to create life-like digital collections, eliminating the need for physical samples.
Let’s quickly go through its key features:
- Real-life virtual fit sessions
- 3D virtual sampling in 5 visual ways (stretch, warp, weft, pressure, and x-ray)
- Channels for fabric color, transparency, shine, and texture
- Integration with graphic design applications
- Fabric and trims library
Each one of the products above has the potential to bring your fashion design skills to the next level by eliminating fastidious aspects of your work like production planning or manufacturing.
The advantage of using such software is that you can focus your efforts and your creativity on what matters the most: astonishing fashion collections.
Plus, you can do so, without ever touching a pencil. Let us know what best suits your pattern creation needs via the comments section below.
