North Carolina
NCSU people
This collection is open for research; access requires at least 24 hours advance notice.
The collection was the gift of Alison Grudier Hardy, President of FabriCAD Consulting. Hardy donated the collection to the Special Collections Research Center of the North Carolina State University Library in 2003. The collection was identified by Professor Nancy Powell, College of Textiles.
[Identification of Item], FabriCAD Consulting Records, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, North Carolina.
North Carolina State University does not own copyright to this collection. Individuals obtaining materials from the NCSU Libraries' Special Collections Research Center are responsible for using the works in conformance with United States copyright law as well as any donor restrictions accompanying the materials.
Alison Grudier Hardy established FabriCAD Consulting in the 1990s. FabriCAD provided consulting services to companies in the fashion and textile industries that were using or considering purchasing Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems. CAD systems let users in these industries create, recolor, and modify designs in a fraction of the time it took by hand, as well as print small batches of fabric on in-house printers.
FabriCAD Consulting researched, proposed, purchased, and implemented CAD systems worldwide. The company provided accurate, up-to-date information allowing potential CAD system purchasers to spend less time researching CAD systems. Services offered by FabriCAD Consulting included: 1)Pre-purchase advice: helping companies decide which CAD system to buy to meet their needs. 2)Workplace design: creating an environment designed to meet the special needs of CAD equipment and their operators. 3)Project Management 4)Contract Work: providing a nationwide referral service for CAD operators
FabriCAD Consulting was a member of the Computer Integrated Textile Design Association (CITDA). The company published a bi-monthly newsletter, FabriCAD Update, providing information on new CAD products and services, industry events, classifieds, and articles geared towards CAD system users. FabriCAD Consulting also maintained a website, FabriCAD On-Line, featuring an eStore, classifieds, a calendar of industry events, and information on the company's consulting services. Other activities of the company included holding a number of conferences called FabriCAD Forums on a variety of CAD-related topics, and publishing an annual CAD Salary and Job Satisfaction Survey.
In 2001 Hardy resigned as President of FabriCAD to become Textile Division Director at Improved Technologies of New Hampshire. The FabriCAD website remained up but publication of the newsletter temporarily halted. In January 2003 Hardy discontinued the website and began pursuing a new business providing window restoration services for old buildings.
This collection contains materials related to FabriCAD Consulting, a firm specializing in Computer Aided Design for the textile industry. Such materials include company newsletters, articles relating to FabriCAD or authored by its President, Alison Grudier Hardy, promotional materials for specific CAD systems, meeting and symposia programs and presentations, and fabric samples. Materials are in the form of written documents, videos, CD-ROMs, disks, slides, and photographs. In addition there are a number of articles on the textile industry in general though they do not deal directly with FabriCAD Consulting.
The collection is organized into three series: Corporate Files, Articles, and Fabric Samples.
This series is divided into four subseries. The Videos are related to various design software companies or deal with trends in the fabric industry. They are arranged alphabetically. The Design Software Companies subseries contains brochures, slides, photographs, promotional materials, and software and fabric samples related to different Computer Assisted Design (CAD) programs. Folders are arranged alphabetically by company, with miscellaneous group folders at the end of the subseries. Original order within the folders has been maintained as closely as possible. The Meetings and Presentations subseries contains images, brochures, and catalogs from several international meetings and the scripts to presentations given at them. Materials in this subseries are arranged alphabetically, and then chronologically. FabriCAD publications are newsletters and reports from FabriCAD and Alison Grudier Consulting (AGC). They are arranged alphabetically.
This series is broken down into four subseries: FabriCAD Forums, Authored by Alison Grudier, FabriCAD Mentioned, and General Fabric Industry. All materials are arranged chronologically within each subseries.
This series contains samples of fabric patterns on a variety of materials, including fabrics, computer printouts, photographs, CD-ROM and disk. Materials are arranged by pattern type, with miscellaneous patterns located at the end of the series.