The tech pack serves as the blueprint of your fashion design. It explains how factories and clothing manufacturers can develop your design from simple ideas and sketches into a full and final product. The tech pack acts like a medium for communicating to suppliers how you want your product to be developed and predict its possible outcome. It includes drawings, cut sheets, printing files, measurements and all other details needed for your clothing project. Let us break down the important components on how do you make a tech pack for fashion line.
6 Important Components of a Fashion Line Tech Pack
1. Drawing
An illustration or drawing of your product gives it a representation for the supplier or manufacturer to visualize. You do not have to sketch the finest drawing for your product but at least provide some basics to give your idea a visual representation. It can come as a simple sketch by manual drawing which can later be on modified when you work with a graphic designer for its Illustrator or Photoshop version. You do not have to be a visual artist in order to come up with your initial tech pack drawing but simply try your best.
2. Measurements
The supplier or manufacturer needs to know the measurements of your product such as how long the dress would be or how wide your hat has to span. Simply give out basic measurements such as length, width and height of the product. All the other dimensions can be provided by the garment supplier or manufacturer as they can easily rationalize your provided measurements for other aspects of the product which need dimensions as well. There is nothing to worry about since you still have the final say regarding the final set of measurements.
3. Fabric Description
If you have already found the desired fabric for your product, might as well include the specifications of it within the tech pack and the supplier will be the one tasked to find this fabric out there in order to use for your clothing product. However, if you are clueless of the fabric to use, let your clothing factory’s or manufacturer’s expertise and knowledge take care of this task. For sure they can advise the right type of fabric fitting for your clothing product’s season and as well as be perfect for your budget.
4. Trim Design
The trim design makes your product unique and customized to be a part of your collection. It could be a simple well-placed pocket, additional zipper, unorthodox label design or a stylized logo print and placement. You need to provide trim design information within the tech pack to fully personalize your clothing design according to specific preferences. Otherwise, your supplier or manufacturer ends up creating a basic generic product without all these trims.
5. Size Grading Specs
The grading specs are the available sizes which you are going to produce for your product. Normally, a regular clothing design is available in at least three sizes (small, medium and large) while other designs choose to go for more sizes such as extra small, extra-large, extra-extra-large or even larger. At the production line, the supplier or manufacturer also needs to know the actual measurements for each size and you need to provide them within the tech pack separate from the measurements of the base template.
6. Print files, Embroideries etc.
These are add-ons found on the outside of the clothing product. However, there are a lot of details to them which you need to specify within the tech pack. Additions such as types of embroidery, printing method, placements and all other specifications must be provided for the manufacturer or supplier to fully grasp. The print files actually consist of a chapter on its own considering it is a design separate from the base clothing. It requires attention to detail which needs to be covered in the tech pack.
Conclusion
The items mentioned above are the basic components included within a tech pack. Other clothing projects may require more details but these ones are the most basic and regular features of a tech pack for a fashion line. A tech pack may not necessarily be a physical file because all of these components mentioned above can simply be organized as digital files and all be stored in a single folder. This way, it is much more convenient to share them and there is less risks of losing them. Talk to a tech pack company if you need help.
On the other hand, keep in mind to have your drawing files and print files in high resolution. You do not want to present illustrations to manufacturers which are difficult to understand and with less clear graphics. It is advisable to seek assistance from a professional graphic designer to upgrade your drawings from simple sketches up to legit virtual design files.