Design

Designs are the patterns that can be used for numerous purposes. Each design may be bought for 350 Bells at the Able Sisters in, , and. Designs are used for clothing, umbrellas, hats, carpeting, and wallpaper, but they can be dropped on the ground. This will prevent weeds from sprouting in the area where the pattern is dropped, but it can also block flowers from growing there, and cause fruit and balloon presents to disappear if there is not enough space for them to land. The player can also display them in their house as a painting, use it as wallpaper and flooring, and hang pictures of the design on the wall.

In for GameCube, players can put a design on their front door; as of now, it is the only game in the series that lets them do so. They can display any of their designs in the tailor, and villagers in the player's town may wear them. If players over Wi-Fi visit another player's town, they may also obtain any of the designs displayed in the shop.

In and, each player may only have eight designs on them at a time, although the latter game allow 64 designs to be stored with Mabel. ups the design limit to ten designs and Mabel will store 72 designs.

Pro Designs
In and, the player can create pro designs. This means that there can be different designs on the left sleeve, right sleeve, front, and back of a shirt. In City Folk, however, the player has to talk to Mabel and pay 350 Bells to create a pro design, whereas the player can create a normal design anywhere. In New Leaf, this fee has increased to 500 bells.

QR codes
New Leaf includes a new feature, which generates QR codes from both regular and pro designs. Once players speak to Sable enough times, the Able Sisters provide a new sewing machine the player can use. This sewing machine generates QR codes from designs to let other players scan them and use them. QR codes are stored in the SD card. Normal designs use one QR code, but pro designs use four codes.