How to Hire a Freelance Technical Designer (Without Paying Twice)

Most first-time brands hire a technical designer after something has already gone wrong. A factory sent back a sample that looks nothing like the sketch, or asked twenty questions the founder couldn't answer, or quoted a price that only makes sense if they guessed at half the garment.

A technical designer is the person who stops that from happening. Here is what they do, how to tell a good one from an expensive lesson, and how to scope the job so you only pay for it once.

What a technical designer actually delivers

The short answer is a tech pack: the document a factory quotes from and sews from. A complete one usually covers:

• Flat sketches, front and back, with callouts for every seam, pocket and closure
• A measurement spec for the base size, with how and where each point is measured
• Construction details: stitch types, seam allowances, finishes, topstitching
• A bill of materials: fabric, lining, interfacing, thread, labels, trims, packaging
• Graded measurements for your full size range (sometimes a separate job)
• Fit comments after each sample, written so the factory can act on them

If you want the long version, we wrote it up in What Is a Tech Pack (and Do You Actually Need One?).

What a technical designer usually does not do: draft the pattern itself (that's a pattern maker), find your factory (a sourcing consultant), or manage the bulk run (a production manager). Plenty of people do more than one of these. Ask, rather than assume.

When you need one

You need a technical designer when a factory is about to quote or sample your garment and you can't yet answer, in writing, how it's built and what it measures. That's usually right after the design is settled and right before the first sample.

You probably don't need one yet if you're still deciding what the product is. Paying someone to spec a garment that changes next week is the most common way founders pay twice.

Seven questions to ask before you hire

1. Can I see a tech pack you made for something like mine? Knits and wovens are different skills. So are swim, denim and tailoring. Ask for a real example, with the client's name taken off if they need to.
2. Do you grade, or only spec the base size? Grading is often quoted separately. Find out before, not after.
3. How many fit rounds are included? Most garments take two or three samples. Know what each extra round costs.
4. What do your fit comments look like? Good ones are measurable: "Take in side seam 1/2 inch at waist, blend to zero at hip." Weak ones are feelings: "Feels a bit loose."
5. Which software do you work in, and what files do I get? You should own a PDF and the editable source. If you change technical designers later, you'll want both.
6. Have you worked with factories like mine? Overseas factories and small domestic workrooms read tech packs differently. Someone who has worked with both will write for yours.
7. What's in the agreement? What's included, how many rounds, what costs extra, and who pays for samples. Pass-through costs like samples and fabric should be billed at what they actually cost.

What it costs

Technical designers charge by the hour, by the style, or by the project. The technical designers on Runsheet who list an hourly rate show it on that page; as we write this, they range from about $45 to $75 an hour, and most of them also quote by project. That's only what a handful of consultants wrote on their own profiles, not a market survey, so treat it as a starting point for the conversation.

For a fuller breakdown of how freelancers price this work, see Freelance Technical Designer Rates.

Whatever the number, get it written down against a list of deliverables. "Tech pack for one style, base size plus grading to five sizes, two fit rounds" is a quote. "About ten hours" is a guess.

Red flags

• No examples. Everyone has something they can show, even with names removed.
• No questions about your factory. A tech pack is written for whoever reads it.
• Everything is included, forever. Unlimited revisions usually means nobody wrote down what a revision is.
• They want to hold your files. You paid for the tech pack. It's yours.

How to scope it so you pay once

Settle the design before you hire. Bring your sketches, reference garments and the factory (or the kind of factory) you plan to use. Agree on the deliverables and the number of fit rounds in writing. And keep everything, from the tech pack to every fit comment, in one place, so the next person to pick it up doesn't start from zero.

Where to find one

Every technical designer on Runsheet wrote their own profile: what they specialise in, how they charge, and the brands they've worked with. Reviews come from their clients and can't be bought or removed. If you'd rather describe the job once and let the right people come to you, post a brief.

Not sure a technical designer is who you need? Here's what each kind of apparel consultant does.