Flat Sketch Dress

Welcome to our crash course in fashion flats! Come and take a deep-dive into the world of fashion with flat sketches, also known as tech sketches, line drawings and design development sketches (DDS). You'll be an expert by the time you're done reading this!

It All Started in The Caves

Since the dawn of man, humans have sought out ways of communicating, sharing ideas, practices, customs and beliefs. The scribes, painters and stone cutters of ancient Egypt (3200 BC—30 BC) were among the first 'commercial' artists, working as paid or conscripted artisans for the Egyptian nation-state.

With the development of the modern fashion industry in the 19th century, designers started using technical sketches to communicate their design ideas so teams could work on them.

Sep 8, 2015 - Explore Justine Milagros's board 'Fashion Flat Sketches', followed by 119 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about flat sketches, fashion flats, fashion sketches. Flat sketch of accordion pleated, halter float dress with sash tie neck closure above center back keyhole opening. This halter float dress has a tent dress silhouette, which falls free.

What's a Flat Sketch?

A flat sketch is a two-dimensional technical drawing which illustrates a garment with basic solid lines. It's like a 'blueprint' of your fashion design —much like an architect's blueprint for a house before they can begin to construct it.

In this package of flat sketches for ladies you Get: Over 136 Black & White flat sketches “front” & “Back” view for most Styles. 272+ Sketches Tops templates for woman garment is an e-book with Basic Fashion croquis as many sleeveless, tank top, t-shirt, long sleeve, short sleeve, hooded top, cardigan, crew neck, v neck, sweater, shirt. In this package of flat sketches for ladies you Get: Over 111 Black & White flat sketches “front” & “Back” view for most Styles. Bottoms templates for woman garment is an e-book with Basic Fashion croquis including 49 Skirts; mini, short, long, pleated, denim style and many more.

The word 'flat' refers to the way that they are drawn: imagine the garment is lying flat on a table so that you are viewing all the details from either the front or the back.

Aside from front/back views, some brands will include drawings of details or the side views to show how panels travel around the body or how sections of the garment should be constructed.

Why Flat Sketches are Important

As an essential part of the garment specification sheet or tech pack, they give your pattern-maker and your manufacturer's sewing teams all the information they need about the technical components of a piece. Toolbox for pages free. How else will they understand your vision

Difference Between Flats and Illustrations

A fashion illustration captures the mood, proportion and color of your design, it's more of an interpretation of your idea. Whereas the technical sketch helps translate the garment into something 'universal' which a whole team of people can understand and work on.

A fashion illustration is transformed into a technical sketch to create a 'blueprint' for the pattern and construction of the garment.

Creating Fashion Flats: The Essentials

1) Include multiple views of your garment

Sometimes just front/ back views are not enough for a factory to understand your design requirements. Ideally, you should include side views, inside and other details to show how the garment should be constructed.

2) Be as Detailed as Possible

Basic Dress Flat Sketch

Develop templates that are detailed so you can use them later in other tech packs. Remember that with Techpacker you can save design details inside cards to be used again as needed.

3) Keep it Simple

Add details as explained above but don't overcomplicate things either. Avoid shading and use plain black and white sketches to clearly represent your design.

Read more about how to ace your flat sketches every time!

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Tech Developments to The Rescue!

Tech flats used to be hand-drawn using rulers and black felt tip pens and indicated the scaling of the original design sample measurements.

Today, most brands use Computer Aided Design (CAD) technologies that enable virtual true to life prototypes, instead of real samples. However, CAD technology isn't cheap and has a steep learning curve. Which is why most designers prefer Adobe Illustrator to create their flats.

The Technical Designer

There's actually someone who only specialises in technical flat drawings. In fact, their role should be to link the Design and Production teams. They are essentially the engineers of fashion.

Funnily though, no two Technical Design jobs are ever the same. To learn more about all the things tech designers can do check out this article. The learning opportunities in this field are endless!

Watch ▶︎

Here's a video from this insightful post by the University of Arts, London that we highly recommend for you to get on the right track doing flats!

Interesting Resources

Flat Sketch Of Dress

→ Free fashion flats in Adobe Illustrator format and tips on how to create flats
Designer Nexus (You need to sign up for free first!)

→ Check out this designer who looked into creating a Web-based Design Support System for Fashion Technical Sketches. Her idea was to enable users to design realistic garments in the form of technical sketches over the internet.

What's next?