Pattern Maker, Technical Designer or Product Developer: Who Do You Hire First?

If you've started looking for help with your first garment, you've probably seen three job titles used as if they mean the same thing: pattern maker, technical designer and product developer. They overlap, and many people do two or all three. But they are different jobs, and hiring the wrong one first is how founders end up paying two people for the same work.

The short version

• A pattern maker makes the flat paper or digital pieces your garment is cut from.
• A technical designer writes down how the garment is built and what it measures, so a factory can make it the same way every time.
• A product developer runs the whole path from idea to a production-ready sample, and usually brings in the other two.

Pattern maker

The pattern is the garment, in pieces. A pattern maker drafts it from your sketch or a reference garment, sews or checks a first sample, and corrects the pattern after every fitting. A good first pattern is the difference between two sample rounds and five.

Hire one first if you already know what you want, you have a factory or sample room lined up, and what you're missing is the pattern itself. Many small domestic workrooms will ask for your pattern before they'll quote.

Ask them: do you draft by hand, in CAD, or both, and what file do I get? Is grading to my size range included? How many corrections are in the price?

Browse pattern makers on Runsheet.

Technical designer

The tech pack is the instructions: measurements, construction, stitches, trims, labels, and fit comments after each sample. Factories quote from it and sew from it. Without one, every factory fills in the gaps differently, which is why the same sketch can come back three different ways.

Hire one first if a factory is about to quote or sample your design and you can't answer their questions in writing. Many overseas factories make their own pattern from a good tech pack, so you may not need a separate pattern maker at all.

Ask them: can I see a tech pack you made for something like mine? Do you write fit comments? What files do I keep?

We wrote a full guide on how to hire a technical designer. Browse technical designers on Runsheet.

Product developer

A product developer is the project lead for your product. They help pick the fabric, find or vet the factory, run the samples and fittings, check costing, and get you to a sample you can approve for production. Some do the pattern and tech pack themselves; others bring in specialists and manage them.

Hire one first if you're starting from an idea and don't know which questions to ask yet, or you don't have time to manage the process yourself. You pay more per hour than for a single specialist, and in return you're not the one coordinating four people.

Ask them: which parts do you do yourself and which do you bring in? How are samples, fabric and other pass-through costs billed? (The answer should be: at what they actually cost.) Which factories have you placed product like mine with?

Browse apparel product developers on Runsheet.

The order most first collections go in

1. Idea to design. You, maybe with a product developer.
2. Design to tech pack. A technical designer, or your product developer.
3. Tech pack to pattern and first sample. A pattern maker, or the factory's own pattern room.
4. Fittings and corrections. Technical designer and pattern maker together, round by round.
5. Approved sample to production. Often a production manager or sourcing consultant from here.

You don't need everyone at once. Most founders need one person for the part they're stuck on right now, and a clear agreement about what's included.

How not to pay twice

The overlap is where money goes missing. If your product developer is also writing the tech pack, you don't need a separate technical designer for the same style. If your factory makes its own pattern from your tech pack, you may not need a pattern maker yet. Before you hire anyone, write down who is responsible for each step above, and make sure every step has exactly one name next to it.

Still not sure?

We put together a plain-English page on what each kind of apparel consultant does, with the people on Runsheet who do it. Or post a brief describing what you're making and where you're stuck, and let the consultants who fit come to you.