The role of a tech pack designer is crucial in transferring an idea to a factory-ready tech pack. Tech pack designers design the entire process flow from sketches to wearable garment samples. When starting a clothing line, hiring a tech pack designer to provide support is imperative. Essentially, they shape your idea by converting your sketches into garments. Tech pack designers simplify style technicalities, making sample development and production more accessible. The result is an apparel tech pack that any factory worldwide can follow to produce your garment. From there, the process moves forward to sample development and apparel production.
1. Assessment of the Fashion Illustration :
The first firefight for a tech pack or technical designer is to assess whether a given illustration or style is feasible for production. This critical hurdle must be cleared before moving forward with the design process. Often, technical issues are visible at the illustration stage that a creative designer may overlook. Therefore, the first job of a fashion technical designer is to evaluate the feasibility of a design or illustration and determine whether it can be progressed further.
2. Production-Friendly Design
Assessing the feasibility of a style idea is one of the toughest challenges facing technical designers. It is essential to determine the possibility of mass production to ensure the success of the client's idea. Failure to assess this could result in the failure of the collection's sale, and the client could lose money in the entire process. Therefore, a technical designer must thoroughly analyze the design to determine its potential for mass production, ensuring that the client's investment is not wasted. You may follow the post " How to Give Your Style Idea a Shape for Clothing Manufacturer." to prepare your collection styles before approaching a technical clothing designer.
3. Choosing the Right Fabric and Color, Keeping in Mind the Season
When people ask for designs and sketches for current European trends or US plus-size garments, the technical fashion designer must do extensive research and gather information about the fabric. This includes understanding grading and fabric shrinkage, knowing what fabrics suit specific styles, understanding GSM (Grams per Meter), weaving techniques, and more. Additionally, the tech pack designer must consider fabric availability and fabric development possibilities for the style. These are critical factors that a technical designer must keep in mind while developing a tech pack. By considering these factors, the designer can ensure that the resulting tech pack is accurate and feasible for production.
4. Drawing the Flat Sketches Approve It
At the operational stage, the first hurdle for any technical designer is to create technical flats from the illustrations provided by the creative designer/buyer and obtain approval. The illustration and technical sketch drawings are typically different parts of the design. The illustration provides an overall and one-sided view of the garment style, while the flat sketch offers a 360-degree view of the entire garment. Any gaps between the drawing and technical sketch must be filled through communication and coordination. The technical designer must clearly understand the creative designer's vision to ensure that the resulting tech pack accurately represents the intended design. By communicating effectively and coordinating, technical designers can create high-quality technical flats that meet the client's requirements.
5. Technical Drawing / Tech Pack Design
Once the technical flats are approved and finalized, the designer will prepare the tech pack and measurement spec sheet. The technical designer must clearly understand sewing construction and translate it into the tech packs. Preparing and reviewing tech packs for complete and accurate information about the garment is vital. The tech pack is ready in phases, usually 8 to 9 steps, depending on the garment detailing and specifications given by the creative designer or client who created the garment style/illustration. Click the provided link to learn more about the steps involved in tech pack design. By following a structured and comprehensive approach to tech pack design, technical designers can ensure that the resulting tech pack is accurate, detailed, and easy to follow during the garment production process.
6. Technical Audit and Quality Assurance
After the release of tech packs to the factories, a tech pack designer must ensure that the sample production adheres to the specifications in the spec pack. It is recommended that the samples are sent for final approval once they have been passed by the tech pack designer. The sample audit process encompasses various stages such as checking the fabric, trims, S.P.I (stitches per inch) or S.P.C (stitches per centimeter), print detailing and quality, embroidery detailing, washing, and more. The tech pack designer conducts the initial technical audit and quality assurance for the sample development.
The role of the tech pack designer becomes crucial at this stage, as they are responsible for quality assessment and sample approval. The technical designer must ensure that the samples produced meet the measurement specifications provided to the factory or sample maker. They also need to ensure that the samples are high quality, including fabric, trims, stitch per inch or centimeter, print detailing, embroidery detailing, washing, etc. Only after the tech pack designer approves the samples can they be sent for final approval and production.
I hope this post makes good sense to your studies and Information. For any kind of tech pack design, sample production, or production assistance, you may feel free to contact me. If you require any assistance with apparel production or sample development in addition to tech pack design services, please feel free to contact me via email.
We offer a variety of ready-to-use tech pack templates that you can download and use right away. These templates have been tried, tested, and modified to achieve the highest level of accuracy. Simply visit our tech pack template store, choose the style you need, and download the template. If you require further support with apparel production or sample development, please contact us.