Essential Guide to Tech Packs: Key Elements, Common Mistakes, and Tips for Accuracy

Written by Rachel Blaydes

You've created a beautiful design for a garment, now it's time for it to come to fruition! For fashion designers, a technical package (tech pack) is a vital document in effectively communicating all of the specific details necessary to bring their design to life. It will help effectively relay the information about how to create your garment between multiple parties. It's all in the details! Having a complete tech pack is the difference between success and disappointment when sampling and manufacturing your garment.  

The Tech Pack and Its Key Elements

A tech pack is a blueprint containing detailed information and instructions on how to build a product. It is a document that serves as a communication tool between you and the manufacturer, outlining all the essential specifications that are necessary to bring a garment from a design concept into a tangible product. Key elements of a tech pack include:  

• Technical Design Sketches
• Colorways
• Graded Specification Sheet (Spec Sheet)
• Point of Measurements (POM)
• Bill of Materials (BOM)
• Fabric Requirements Chart
• Construction Details
• Renderings and Mockups
• Labeling, Folding, and Packing Information

Common mistakes when developing a tech pack

Constructing a tech pack for manufacturers requires precision and attention to detail. If each element is not easily understood by the manufacturer, or if there is a technical error in any of the specifications, the resulting product will not be an accurate reflection of your design. This will result in a loss of time and resources for both parties.

Inaccuracies strain the relationship with your manufacturers and suppliers.  

How can you mitigate these risks?

For small businesses that are not ready to invest in a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), there are many free templates available online that you can follow. When your company is ready to streamline the process, there are great PLM systems that are available. PLMs serve as a cohesive central data management system that helps to minimize mistakes. They refine the development and manufacturing stages and make collaboration simpler by allowing all information to be available on one platform. There are systems that are suitable for all sizes of businesses, and many offer the ability to sync data to a cloud. Examples that are geared toward fashion companies include AIMS360 and Aptean Apparel PLM .

Minimizing manufacturing errors

To reduce the number of manufacturing errors, there are several simple steps that should be taken to ensure accuracy.

• Don't assume English is the native language of a partner's employees
• When choosing a manufacturer, make sure that they have an Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) process in place that meets your requirements

Pro-Tip: Conduct an additional quality check once the product is received to verify the product meets expectations.

How to Perfect Technical Sketches

A technical sketch (or fashion flat) is a black-and-white, two-dimensional drawing that illustrates the garment's basic construction with solid lines representing seam lines and dashed lines representing stitching. Technical sketches are not design illustrations. They act as a blueprint for the manufacturer to follow. When creating sketches to put inside of a tech pack, it is necessary to make a front, back, and depending on the garment, side and interior views of the design. This ensures that the manufacturer can easily see how the finished garment should look.

One of the biggest mistakes to avoid is adding unnecessary shading or color to technical sketches. Color should be reserved only for fashion illustrations of the design or when denoting your garment's colorway.

Is my fashion flat complete? Double-check that all seams (including darts) and top-stitching are included. Any trims that will be used to make the designs need to be included as well. Some examples of trims:

• Buttons
• Zippers
• Clasps
• Ribbons
• Appliques
• Labels

Colorway Sheet

When putting a colorway sheet together, make sure to include every intended color combination for the design. Under the technical illustrations, include photographs of the fabric swatches and header card to be used.

How to Create an Accurate Graded Specification Sheet

The spec sheet is a page of information about the measurements of your garment. Spec Sheets are often made in tandem with POM sheets. A spec sheet is important for conveying the correct measurement of each POM.

To start, determine what all of the necessary POMs will be. Another crucial step is to add tolerances to every listed measurement on the page.

When creating a grading sheet, start with determining the measurements of the base size. This is usually the median size offered based on the intended target market. Once the base size measurements are set, determine the grade rule to determine the measurements of the other sizes. Apply the grade rule and input the specifications for the garment's size chart.

Pro Tip: give a unique code to each POM to be able to easily differentiate them from one another (ie. B-A, B-M).

Point Of Measurements

POM sheets are a visual representation of every measurement listed on your Spec Sheet. Once each measurement has been identified and labeled, take the perfected technical sketch and add arrows between the start and end points of each measurement. Consider making these lines a bold color such as red so they stand out. Add each corresponding code next to the arrowed lines.

Bill of Materials: What to Include

The BOM is a list of materials that will be used to create your design. This information chart will contain the specifications of both the aesthetic and functional hardware and trims.

• Style Details: Pantone color name + code
• Fabrics: Shell, Lining, Pockets
• Trims: Sewing Thread, Buttons, Zippers, Grommets, Interlining, Padding, etc.
• Labels: Brand Labels, Care Labels, Price Ticket, Hang Tags
• Packing Materials: Tissue Paper, Silica Packets, Shipping Bags, etc.

Fabric Requirement Chart

The fabric requirement chart allows you to list the details of the fabric to be used in the garment. This allows space to list any notable characteristics of the fabric such as weight, fiber content, finishes, treatments, and pattern details. If available, include supplier contact information, price, and minimum order quantities (MOQs).

Construction Details

The Construction Details page of the tech pack is about unseen details, including information about the aesthetic embellishments and trims and their placement. Include all of the different stitch types that will be used to complete the garment, as well as stitch per inch (SPI) for each stitch if they are not all the same. Don't forget to include any contrasting thread colors!

Pro Tip: make sure to include bartacks for stress points.

Renderings/Mockups

The renderings page is where the construction details that were previously mentioned in the tech pack will be noted in further detail. Be sure to include close-up technical sketches that clearly show the design annotations. Mockups can be sent to your manufacturer with the tech pack in lieu of a full garment to physically show certain details that may be difficult to explain in a rendering.

Labeling, Folding, and Packing Information

Labeling information is vitally important to include in the tech pack so that the shipment is compliant. This is necessary for an international shipment so it doesn't get flagged and delayed by customs. There are several mandatory label requirements:

• Country of Origin
• Fiber Composition
• Sizing
• Company Name
• American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Care Labels

If there are any applicable regulations in the geographic area in which you plan to sell your product, perform the necessary tests and include the appropriate warning labels (like in the United States, California's Prop 65 Warning or Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA)).

Identify the exact placement of each label and the price tag. List the type of packaging that your garment will be shipped in, and add illustrated folding instructions.

Pro Tip: This information is often compiled into a vendor manual.

Pro Tip: If the garment is made using a knit fabric, think carefully about where the price tag should go so as not to create any unnecessary holes.

Congratulations! With all of these pages completed, you now have a detailed tech pack to send out to your manufacturer.

Have more questions? Send us an email at Press@FashionIndex.com