Technical Drawing and Visual Communication
Technical Drawing and Visual Communication
This domain tests precision: can you describe a garment precisely enough that someone in another country, who never sees your sample, can make it identically? Flats and spec sheets are working documents, not decoration.
Flats (technical sketches)
- Drawn flat, to scale, front and back, in black line on white, with no shading.
- Show every construction detail: seams, topstitching (dashed lines), darts, pleats, buttons and buttonholes, zips, pockets, belt loops, facings.
- Always include the grainline arrow, balance notches and callouts naming trims and placements.
- Use symmetry: draw half and mirror it, or draw the full garment with a centre line.
The tech pack
Typical contents: style number and description, flats, bill of materials (fabric, lining, interfacing, trims with supplier codes), colourways with lab-dip references, points of measure (POM) with tolerances, construction notes and stitch/seam types, labels and packaging, size range and grading rules, sample dates.
- Each POM must state exactly how the garment is measured (flat, buttoned, from which point to which point) and its tolerance, e.g. ±0.5 cm.
- Keep one unit system throughout; mixing centimetres and inches is a classic failure.
Worked example
Spec line for '1/2 chest': 'Measure flat, garment buttoned, straight across from armhole to armhole 2.5 cm below the armhole seam; base size M = 52 cm; tolerance ±0.5 cm; grade 1.5 cm per size.' That single sentence removes every ambiguity a factory could raise.
Traps that cost marks
- A flat with no grainline, no notches and no back view.
- Vague POM wording ('chest width') with no measuring points.
- Omitting tolerances - no garment is sewn to the exact millimetre.
- Drawing flats with shading or perspective, so they cannot be measured.
- Callouts pointing at nothing, or arrows crossing each other.
- Forgetting the bill of materials, so trims are never ordered.