How to find the right designer for your brand.
If you’re a fashion brand looking for a print designer, you might come across the term surface pattern designer and wonder if they’re the same thing. While there’s overlap in skills, these roles serve different industries—and understanding the distinction is key to finding the right designer for your needs.
Surface Pattern Designers: Creating Cohesive, Licensed Collections
Surface pattern designers typically focus on collections of prints designed to work together—perfect for homewares, stationery, and wallpaper. Their work is often licensed, meaning brands pay for the rights to use a design based on terms like time, region, or product type.
Their portfolios are public, with designs showcased on social media and websites to attract licensing deals. But these designs aren’t usually available for direct purchase—brands select patterns from existing collections or commission custom work.
Print Designers: Fast-Paced, Exclusive Prints for Fashion
The fashion industry works differently. Print designers don’t typically license their work—prints are sold outright to ensure exclusivity. Once a brand purchases a design, it won’t be available to anyone else.
Fashion print designers also work at a much faster pace than surface pattern designers, keeping up with shifting trends and tight production schedules. While an in-house team may handle simple prints like stripes and polka dots, print designers specialise in more complex, artistic designs that elevate a collection beyond what an in-house team typically produces.
Finding the Right Designer for Your Brand
If you’re looking for patterns to be used across multiple product categories with flexible licensing, a surface pattern designer might be the right fit. But if you need unique, trend-driven prints exclusively for your collection, a fashion print designer is what you’re looking for.
Fashion moves fast—having the right designer ensures your prints are not only original but also perfectly suited for the industry’s demands.