The document discusses textile design approaches in Ghana. It finds that local textile designers in Ghana take a direct, informal approach focused on aesthetics, making them designers rather than problem solvers. This is due to training methods that emphasize ideals over practical skills. The document recommends adopting a formal, systematic approach like the Universal Design Model to analyze needs, generate concepts, prototype, test, and market designs. This would help Ghanaian textile designers develop problem-solving skills to better meet 21st century consumer demands.

1. TEXTILE DESIGN AS PROBLEM SOLVING
ACTIVITY: A PRACTICAL APPROACHE IN MEETING THE TEXTILE
DESIGN NEEDS OF 21ST CENTURY CONSUMER
EBENEZER KOFI HOWARD (PhD)
Department of Industrial Art, Faculty of Art
CABE, KNUST

2. ORDER OF PRESENTATION
• INTRODUCTION
• METHODOLOGY
• RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
• CONCLUSIONS
• RECOMMENDATIONS

3. INTRODUCTION
The traditional aim of textiles is clothing which is one of the
three basic necessities of man, alongside food and shelter
(Adu-Akwaboa, 2010)
Although, clothing is usually prioritized second to food, textile
activists posit that, one can go unnoticed without food or
shelter for a moment, but without clothing, he or she may be
perceived in a civilized world as insane or a mad person
(Agyemang, 2001)
For this reason textile production has been the main pillar
around which industrialization in Europe and other countries
have evolved.
For the purpose of this study, the focus will be dwelled on
designing for fabric decoration.

4. INTRODUCTION (Cont’d)
Today’s textiles market is described as a porous and
competitive one where local designers are faced with stiff
competition from their off-shore counterparts largely due to
global free trade policies (Quartey, 2006; Abdallah, 2010).
This has led to a paradigm shift in design concept where the
traditional aim of textiles for clothing has given way to highly
aesthetic, fashionable, functional and conceptualized designs as
a result of change in consumer needs and preference which put
the designer in an exigent position.
This study assesses the design approaches of local textile
design practitioners vis-a-vis best design practices and suggests
practicable ways of designing to meet the design needs of 21st
century consumer.

5. METHODOLOGY
Research Design
 Qualitative
Universal Design Model and multiple case study
 Population for the study
ATL and GTP design staff
Textile design lecturers and selected final year students from
KNUST, Kumasi and Takoradi Polytechnics.
 Data collection Instruments
Participant observation and focus group discussion

6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The role of the textile designer
The major role of the textile designer is to design and
produce to an agreed timetable, an agreed number of
commercially viable fabric designs (Wilson, 2001)
This requires that the designer develop special skills
such as (Carol, 1967)
- creative ability,
- technical skills,
- commercial awareness of textile industry,
- research and data handling,
- critical evaluation and interpretation of materials,
- quick decision making ability.

7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Textile design as a problem solving activity
Professional textile designers now adopt systematic and
well-structured approaches in their design activities as
against the conventional direct and informal approach to
meet the needs of consumers(Yates, 1996).
They see textile design process as a problem solving
activity where the degree of formality becomes a function
of scale and the number of interests represented.
A s a problem solving activity, design in textiles can be
understood in four distinct premises as follows:

8. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Textile design as a problem solving activity
• Design in textiles is an investigative process; it involves
research. The first stage in any design exercise is normally an
enquiry into what the potential client requires; their needs and
expectations must be brought on board in the design process.
• Textile design is a creative process; it involves art and
aesthetics. A design problem is solved through technical know-how,
experience, ingenuity, pattern recognition abilities, lateral or
imaginative thinking, brainstorming, etc.
• Textile design is a rational process; it involves logical
reasoning in checking and testing of proposed solutions,
information analysis, experimentation, and field trails, etc.
• Textile design is a decision-making process. It involves
making value judgements.

9. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Design approaches of local textile practitioners
 Designers mostly create on demands or orders from clients and
occasionally design for the mass market.
 Spent minimum of five working days on one design depending on
the nature of the design.
 Their design approach is direct and informal.
 Design concepts are generated based on the designer’s perception
and ideologies.
 Aesthetic appeal is the main assessment criteria for design results.

10. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Freelance textile designers
Designs with no clear boundaries
Largely depend on fate to get their creative
designs to penetrate the market
Low job turn-out
Shifted focus into buying and selling leaving
their design career
Design makers and not problem solvers

11. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
In-House designers
Limited in terms of design capabilities due to
certain restrictions that are imposed on them as
salary or hired company designers which
include:
 Company’s design philosophies or ideologies,
Working within budget allocation,
Company’s range of products,
Production methods and
Available machinery.

12. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
In-House designers
• In-house designers also dwell much on aesthetic
as the main criteria for assessing the design
work.
• Utility, performance and commercial viability of
are not a major consideration of their design
activity.
• Hence they tend to create beautiful designs
which have little or no commercial value.

13. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
In-House designers
• Some domestic textile factories with specific reference to
Texstyles Ghana Limited (TGL) and Akosmbo Textiles
Limited (ATL) occasionally lunch design projects such as
GTP Nustyle.
• The aim is to target the youth to boost patronage of their
printed fabrics.
• Such projects lacks problem solving approach and for
this reason designs emanating from such projects are not
able to stand the test of time and leaves the seen as fad.

14. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Level of competencies of local textile designers
Designers have the requisite technical know-how to “good”
textile designs both manually and computer-aided.
 Their major challenge is the approach they use in their
design activity which makes them vulnerable to create
problem-based designs to meet design needs of 21st century
consumer.
 Their vulnerability stems from the fact that they have been
trained to design for aesthetic purpose rather than designing
to solve identified design problems

15. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Textile design training pedagogies of academic institutions
 Idealistic training pedagogies used in training textile designers in
the institutions of higher learning is one of the major factors which
is making textile design graduates unable to solve design problems.
 Students primarily are much concerned about designing to earn
marks but the issue of problem solving or commercial viability is
considered as secondary factor in their design approach.
 Lecturers’ assessment criteria for creative designs are largely
weighted towards aesthetics which is more of extrinsic in nature.
 The intrinsic aspect of assessment which assesses the performance
and quality of the product is most often disregarded.

16. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Textile design training pedagogies of academic institutions
Monitoring and supervision of the design process is generally
missing in our academic institutions.
Learning process has largely become teacher-centred
Lecturers give project assignment to students with time lines to
meet and the next stage is the final product which is solely
assessed by the lecturer.
Students commercialized their project assignment with little or
no skill acquired in the end making them incompetent to perform
after school.

17. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Textile design training pedagogies of academic institutions
 Another critical observation made from the institution of higher learning
was that, no formal or systematic design approach is used in the training of
designers.
 This results in a situation where designs created become difficult if not
impossible to be replicated or reproduced for the mass market.
 Most academic institutions have adopted the use of Computer Aided Design
(CAD) concept in the anticipation of equipping students in computer aided
application to enable them fit into industry after school.
 The challenge however is that, students are not able to master the available
design software for better rendition of their designs and as a result, they
tend to create sub-standard designs which are uncharacteristic of a “good”
surface textile design.

18. Comparative Analysis of the Universal Design Model with the Design
Approach of local Textile Design Practitioners
Analytical Phase Who is the user?
-Observation Surveys & observations
-Measurement Standards & Regulations
Creative Phase Sketching ideas
-Evaluation Drawing concepts
- Judgement Building models
- Decision Ranking & selecting ideas
Execution Phase Prototyping
-Description Details & specification
-Transition Manufacturing
-Transmission Product testing
Usability testing
Compliance with standards
Marketing

19. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Using the Universal Design Model as the basis for
comparison to assess that of local designers, it could
be established that local textile designers are not in
conformity with best textile design practices.
Although they sometimes target a specific user for
the design results, they do not consider the key
indicators of modern design paradigm which require
the designer to be engaged in:
1. Critical analysis of the design problem through
surveys, observations, standards and regulations.

20. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (cont’d)
Critical thinking at the creative stage which involves:
-Evaluation,
-Judgement, and
-Decision making
to direct the ideation of sketches, drawing concepts, building
models and ranking and selecting ideas for the execution
phase.
It could also be established that their production approach is
direct and informal which does not go through the processes
of prototyping, details and specification, manufacturing,
product testing, usability testing, compliance with standards
and marketing as projected in the Universal Design Model.

21. CONCLUSION
The study concludes that local textile design practitioners are
not going by modern design approaches.
They still adhere to the conventional direct and informal way
of designing with the focus on aesthetics making them design
makers instead of problem solvers.
A situation which has been created largely as a result of
idealistic training pedagogies of our institutions of higher
learning.
CONCLUSION

22. RECOMMENDATIONS
• In order for local textile practitioners to remain competitive in
today’s market therefore requires the need for adoption of a
formalised and systematic design approach which is well grounded
in problem solving concept.
• Universal Design Approach is recommended to help sustain and
develop the domestic textile design industry.
• Again, the textile design curricula must be reviewed with much
focus on PBL which is student-centred with real-life and hands-on
training pedagogies.
• This the researcher believes will provide design students and
graduates with requisite skills to solve textile design problems of our
society in order to meet the design needs of the 21st Century
consumer.
RECOMMENDATIONS

23. REFERENCES
Abdallah, N. (2010). Inside Ghana’s collapsing textile industry. Retrieved 2010/06/29
fromhttp://inwent-iij-lab.org/Weblog//inside-ghana%E2%80%99s-collapsing-
textile-industry/
Adu-Akwaboa, S. (2001). Introduction to Textile Design. KNUST-Kumasi: Samarg
Publications.
Carol, J. (1982). Designing for Printed Textiles: A guide to Studio and Free-lance
work. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs.
Quartey, P. (2006): The Textile and Clothing Industry in Ghana. Retrieved 17/07/2009
from Library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/03796/10ghana.pdf
Van-Roosmalen (2010). Universal Design Methodology. University of Pittsburgh, School of
Health and Rehabilitation Science
Wilson, J. (2001). Handbook of Textile Design. Principles, processes and
practice.CRC Press Boca Raton Boston. New York, Washington, DC.
Yates, M. (1996). Textiles: A Handbook for Designers. Revised edition, Norton and
Company, London.

24. THANK YOU