Tech Pack Checklist — 12 Things Every Factory Needs From You

A tech pack is a manufacturing instruction manual, but it is also something more useful than that: it is the document you and the factory argue from when the sample comes back wrong. If a detail is in the pack and the sample does not match it, that is the factory's cost to fix. If the detail was never written down, it is yours. Almost every dispute in this trade traces back to that line.

You do not need a designer to produce one. You need to be specific. Here is the twelve-point checklist, and for each one, what goes wrong when it is missing.

1. Front, back and side sketches

Hand-drawn is genuinely fine. What matters is the silhouette, the seam lines, the pocket positions and the overall structure — not the rendering quality.

The side view is the one people skip and the one that resolves the most arguments: it is where sleeve pitch, pocket depth and the way a hood sits actually become visible.

2. Construction notes and callouts

Annotate the sketch: pocket dimensions, zip positions and lengths, closure types, seam treatments such as fully taped, elastic placement and width.

What goes wrong: this is where most miscommunication happens, because words carry assumptions. "Reinforced pocket" means bar-tacked at the stress points to one person and a double layer of fabric to another. Draw the arrow, name the operation.

3. Fabric specification

Outer fabric, lining, any membrane, and any panel that differs from the body.

If you do not know the exact weight, describe the behaviour you need — how it should feel, how much it should weigh, whether it must be quiet, whether it must stretch — and send a reference garment for handfeel. We will specify a fabric that meets that behaviour from our own range; the reference is a target, not something to be copied. If you would rather work from the material side first, our fabric library sets out the nine families and what each is genuinely good at.

What goes wrong: a pack that says only "waterproof fabric" gets quoted on the cheapest thing that meets the word, and the gap only becomes visible when the sample arrives.

4. Colourways

Pantone references if you have them, otherwise hex codes or a physical swatch. List the colour for each component separately — body, contrast panels, trim, lining, zip tape, thread.

What goes wrong: screens and printed swatches both lie, in different directions. Anything that matters commercially should be approved on a physical lab dip before bulk, not signed off from a photograph. This matters most on fluorescents such as blaze orange, which display particularly badly.

5. Size run

Which sizes, and for which market. S–3XL is our standard run, and grading shifts by market — US, EU and UK charts are not the same, and a garment graded for one and sold into another will generate returns that look like a quality problem but are a specification problem.

6. Measurements — the one that deserves real attention

This is the section that separates a pack that produces a good first sample from one that produces three rounds of revisions.

What a complete measurement page contains:

• Points of measure, named and shown on a diagram — chest, body length, across shoulder, sleeve length, cuff, hem, neck opening at minimum. The diagram matters because "sleeve length" is measured from three different places depending on who you ask.
• The measurement method for each point — laid flat or circumference, from the centre back or from the shoulder seam.
• A full graded spec, not one base size. State the increment between sizes if you do not have the full table.
• Tolerances. No garment is made to the millimetre. State what variation is acceptable per point — typically tighter on chest and length than on a hem or a cuff — because a tolerance that is written down is a tolerance you can hold a factory to.

If you do not have a spec sheet, we will provide our standard template, and our published size charts show the format we work in.

7. Trim and hardware

Zip brand and type — standard, water-resistant, reverse coil, two-way — plus length and colour. Snap material and finish. Drawcord style, cord lock type, elastic width and type.

What goes wrong: hardware is where a quote quietly changes. A branded water-resistant zip and a generic coil zip are different costs and different products, and if the pack does not name which, you are comparing quotes that are not comparable.

8. Labels and branding

Main label — woven or printed — plus care label, size label and hang tag, with the position of each marked on the sketch. Supply artwork as vector where possible. Specify logo application on the garment separately: embroidery, heat transfer, rubber patch, print.

What goes wrong: care label content is a legal requirement in most markets and its rules differ by market — fibre composition in the local language for the EU, bilingual English and French for Canada, country-of-origin marking for the US. Getting this wrong is a customs problem, not a cosmetic one.

9. Packaging

Individual polybag or not, folding method, hang tag attachment, barcode or SKU sticker placement, master carton quantity and marking.

What goes wrong: if you are shipping into a retailer or a fulfilment centre, their packing requirement is usually non-negotiable and expensive to redo after the fact. Ask them before you brief us, not after.

10. Quantity per size and colour

Not just the total. The split changes cutting efficiency and therefore price, and a lopsided size curve is worth discussing before it is cut rather than after it fails to sell.

11. Target price or budget

Telling a factory your target is not weakness — it is the fastest route to a workable answer. With a target we can tell you honestly whether it is achievable at your quantity, and if not, which specification change closes the gap. Without one we guess, and the guess is usually wrong in one direction or the other.

12. Lead time and deadline

State the date the goods must be with you, not the date you want them to ship, and say what the date is tied to — a season, a trade show, a retailer window. Sampling runs 7 to 10 days and bulk 28 to 35 days from sample approval, and shipping sits on top of that. Working backwards from a real date is the only way to know whether the plan is possible.

The bonus: reference photos

Photographs of a real garment, including the details you want changed, are the highest-value page in most tech packs. Mark them up. Say what to keep and what to change.

The thing no checklist mentions: version control

The most common real-world tech pack failure is not a missing measurement. It is three versions of the pack in circulation, and the factory building from the one that arrived first.

Put a version number and a date on every page. When something changes, reissue the whole pack rather than sending a correction in a message — messages get missed, and a message is a weak thing to argue from later. Once a sample is approved, that approved sample is the reference, and any change after that point is a new revision with its own number.

If you do not have any of this

Most first-time brands do not, and it is not a barrier. Send a sketch, a reference garment, or even a photograph and a description of the conditions the garment is for — we will build the pack with you. Our tech pack builder walks through the same twelve points and produces a document you can send to any factory, not only to us.

The quick test for whether a pack is ready: could a factory that has never spoken to you build from it without asking a question? If not, the questions they would have asked are the sections still missing.