How to Think Like a Leather Craft Designer, Not Just a Beginner

Most beginners approach leatherworking by simply following the instructions from any good tutorial. This will always be a good starting point, however this approach has limitations. After a while, your real growth starts when you stop learning how to follow instructions and start thinking like a leather craft designer.

This is an important moment for you, the person who learns leather craft, because thinking like a leather craft designer changes everything. It changes your mindset on how to approach any new leather craft idea.

To learn how to think like a leather craft designer means you must think of your product as a system or structure, not just an object. Your wallet isn’t just a folded piece of leather, it is a set of structures to hold stuff, and points of stress, and stitching that holds it together, etc. Thinking like a leather craft designer helps you make good choices and your work will benefit as a result.

As a result, you must understand that it’s okay to keep things simpler than you thought. Beginners often try to add more to make the design more interesting or useful to them in some way. For example, more pockets or interesting shapes.

Leather craft designers think more strategically when starting out. They have thought through the proportions, the usage, etc., before they even make the first stitch. They have also thought about which parts of the piece will get the most stress. This is because leather craft designers want to design their product before they cut their leather for production.

You also need to think about leather type, which will be part of the design and construction process.

When you learn how to think like a leather craft designer you’ll notice that you don’t need to use the pattern anymore. The patterns are a good starting point to help you develop your own designs, which you’ll adjust and modify to suit your needs. As your understanding grows you’ll find you start to create your own designs on the fly and without having to follow an exact pattern or guide, all things you’d find in leather craft classes.

This is why leather craft becomes more than just following instructions. It’s about designing the pieces for what they’ll be and will look like as you craft it, which is what happens in a professional setting.