How to Make a Tech Pack: A Guide for Small Clothing Brands

To make a tech pack, you build one document that tells a factory exactly how to make your garment: technical flats (front, back, and details), a bill of materials, a color callout for every part, a measurement chart with tolerances, construction notes, and label and packaging instructions. Start from your best reference garment, draw the flats, spec each component, add measurements for one base size, then grade the size range. Version every change and update the pack after each sample round.

This guide is for founders and first-time designers launching a small clothing brand: people who know what they want the product to look like but have never handed a factory a spec. It covers everything other guides cover, plus the parts they usually skip. That includes how a factory actually reads your pack, how to call out color part by part, how to manage versions, and how a garment moves from first proto to bulk production.

What is a tech pack, and why does a factory need one?

A tech pack (short for technical package) is the instruction manual for a single style. It is the document your factory, pattern maker, and sample room all work from. When something comes back wrong, it is also the document everyone goes back to in order to decide whose mistake it was.

A factory uses your tech pack for three jobs:

1. Quoting. They cannot price a garment without knowing the fabric, weight, trims, print methods, and how much sewing it takes. A vague pack gets you a vague quote, which tends to rise later.
2. Sampling. The pattern maker builds the pattern from your measurements and flats. Anything missing becomes a guess.
3. Quality control. During and after bulk production, inspectors measure garments against your spec and tolerances. If you did not write a tolerance, there is nothing to hold the factory to.

A spec sheet and a tech pack are not the same thing. "Spec sheet" usually means just the measurement page. The tech pack is the whole package, and the measurement page is one part of it.

What goes in a tech pack?

Every guide agrees on the core sections. Here is what each one must contain to be useful, not just present.

If you are building a simple t-shirt, some of these sections are short. A heavyweight hoodie or a sports jersey needs all of them in full.

How do factories actually read a tech pack?

This is the part most guides skip, and it changes how you should write the pack.

Your tech pack is rarely read cover to cover by one person. It gets split up. The merchandiser or account manager reads the cover and BOM to price it. The fabric buyer reads the BOM and color page to order materials and request lab dips. The pattern maker reads the flats and the measurement chart. The sample room reads the construction notes. Later, QC reads the measurement chart and tolerances.

That has three practical consequences:

• Each page must stand on its own. If the drawcord color only appears in a note on page 2, the trims buyer working from the BOM will never see it. Put each fact where the person who needs it will look.
• Say it once, in one place. If the chest width is 61 cm on the measurement page and 60 cm in a construction note, someone will pick the wrong one. Duplicate data is how contradictions happen.
• Language matters. Your pack may be read by someone working in a second language, sometimes through a translation tool. Short sentences, standard trade terms (HPS, CF, SPI, coverstitch), and numbers instead of adjectives travel better than "make it a bit roomier."

How do you call out color for every part of a garment?

Most tech pack guides say "add Pantone colors" and move on. In practice, color is where small brands lose the most sample rounds, because a garment is not one color. A hoodie in "black" might involve a fleece body, a jersey hood lining, rib cuffs and waistband, a drawcord, metal aglets and eyelets, sewing thread, and two labels. Each comes from a different supplier, and each can be dyed to a slightly different shade unless you say exactly what you want.

The fix is a color callout table: one row per part, one column per colorway. It sits next to your BOM, or inside it.

Which color code systems should you use?

• Pantone TCX (cotton) and TPX/TPG (paper) are the codes most garment factories recognize. TCX swatches are dyed on cotton, which makes them closer to how fabric will look. Codes follow a format like 19-XXXX TCX.
• Mill or supplier codes. Many fabric mills and trim suppliers have their own color cards. If your rib or drawcord supplier has a stock color that matches, using their code is often faster and cheaper than custom dyeing.
• Physical standards. A swatch or a previous approved garment you mail to the factory. Screens and printed PDFs shift color, so the physical standard is what lab dips are judged against.

Sample hoodie BOM with color callouts

Here is what a filled-in table might look like for a heavyweight hoodie in two colorways. Codes are placeholders.

Two notes on this table. First, "match body" is a real instruction, but only if the body color is pinned down; the rib and lining are dyed separately from the fleece, so each needs its own lab dip even when the target is the same. Second, hardware and labels rarely have Pantone codes. Describe them with finish, ground color, and text color, or use the supplier's code.

If you want to go deeper on naming and structuring colorways across a collection, read what a colorway is and how to spec one.

How to make a tech pack, step by step

Here is the process in the order that saves the most rework.

1. Pick a reference garment. Find a garment, yours or bought, that fits close to how you want yours to fit. Measure it. It is the fastest way to get realistic starting numbers, and you can mail it to the factory as a fit reference.
2. Draw the flats. Use Illustrator, a free flat library, or a tech pack tool. Draw front and back to scale, with seams and topstitching visible. Add zoomed views for the hood construction, cuff, pocket opening, and any print. Keep flats black and white; color goes in the callout table.
3. Write the BOM. List every component: main fabric (composition, gsm, knit or weave type), secondary fabrics, rib, thread, trims, labels, hang tags, polybag. Add supplier and article number if you have them. If you are letting the factory source, write the spec you need and ask for options.
4. Add the color callouts. One row per part, one column per colorway, as above. Note which parts need lab dips and which are stock colors.
5. Build the measurement chart. Choose a base size (often M). List points of measure: body length from HPS, chest width 2 cm below the armhole, hem width, sleeve length, cuff height and width, hood height and width, and so on. Write how each one is taken, ideally with a small diagram. Add a tolerance for each, commonly in the range of plus or minus 0.5 to 1 cm for main body points, tighter for small details. Your factory may suggest its own norms.
6. Grade the sizes. Add the increment between sizes for each point. You can leave grading to the factory for a first sample, but confirm it before bulk; otherwise your size chart is their size chart.
7. Write the construction notes. Seam type per seam (overlock, flatlock, coverstitch), stitches per inch, seam allowance, hem finish, and where you want topstitching. If you want a twin-needle coverstitch at the cuff, say so; do not assume it.
8. Place artwork and labels. Supply vector artwork files. Specify method (screen print, puff, embroidery, DTG), size, and position measured from a fixed point, for example 8 cm below HPS, centered on CF. Show label placements on the flat.
9. Add packaging. Folding method, polybag type, sticker or barcode placement, how many per carton.
10. Set the version and send. Put a version number and date on the cover, export to PDF, and keep the editable master file. Ask the factory to confirm they have read every page and to send questions in writing.

How should you handle tech pack versions?

Your pack will change after every sample. That is normal. Problems start when the factory sews from version 2 while you are reviewing version 4.

A simple system works for a small brand:

• Number versions on the cover. Use v1.0 for the first send, then v1.1, v1.2 for small fixes and v2.0 for big changes, like a new fabric.
• Put the version in the file name. For example: HD01_heavyweight-hoodie_v1.2_2026-10-28.pdf.
• Keep a revision log page. Each entry gets a date, version, what changed, which page, and who requested it. "Sleeve length M: 64 to 66 cm, per fit sample 1 comments."
• Highlight changes. Mark changed cells or callouts in the new version so the factory does not have to compare two PDFs line by line.
• Have one master. One editable file, one owner. Everyone else gets exported PDFs.
• Get written confirmation. Ask the factory to reply confirming which version they are working from.

What happens after you send the tech pack? The approval loop

A tech pack is not done when you send it. It goes through several rounds of samples, each with a specific purpose. Names vary between factories and countries, but the usual sequence for a small brand looks like this.

1. Quote and proto sample

The factory reviews the pack, asks questions, and gives a price. Then they make a prototype, or proto. Its job is to check the overall look and construction. It may be in substitute fabric or color. Proto turnaround is often quoted at one to two weeks, but it varies a lot by factory, garment complexity, and how busy the sample room is.

What to check: silhouette, construction, proportions. Do not judge color on a proto.

2. Fit sample

Made in the correct or close-to-correct fabric, sewn to your measurements. Try it on a real person in your base size, measure it against your chart, and note every point that is out of tolerance.

What to check: every point of measure, fit on the body, how the fabric hangs. Update the pack and send a new version with your comments. You may need more than one fit round.

3. Lab dips and trim approvals

Usually in parallel with fit. The dye house dyes small swatches of each fabric to your color standard and sends options, often labeled A, B, C. You approve one, or reject and comment ("too red, needs to be cleaner"). Do this for body fabric, rib, and lining separately, and for any custom-dyed drawcord or thread. Judge them in daylight or a light box, never only on a phone photo.

Color is where most surprises happen. Fabric type, dye lot, and lighting all shift how a shade reads. If you want the full picture of why, read why the factory got your color wrong.

4. Pre-production (PP) sample

Made in the approved fabric, approved colors, final trims, labels, and artwork, sewn the way bulk will be sewn. This is the last checkpoint. Once you sign it off, it becomes the benchmark QC will measure bulk against.

What to check: everything. Measurements, every part color against the approved lab dips, label placement, care label content, print position, packaging. If something is wrong here, fix it before you approve.

5. Bulk production and top of production

Bulk starts after PP approval. Some brands also ask for a top-of-production (TOP) sample, pulled from the first garments off the line, to confirm bulk matches the PP. For a small first order, a TOP sample or photos plus measurements from the first pieces is cheap insurance.

How do you make the factory confirm every color code?

The weakest link in most small-brand approval loops is color confirmation. You send a color page; the factory says "OK"; three weeks later the cuffs are a different shade from the body. "OK" did not mean they had checked each part.

A better habit is to ask for confirmation part by part. For every row in your color callout table, the factory should either confirm the code and material, or raise a query on that specific row: "drawcord color not available in stock, can offer mill code X or custom dye at extra cost." That turns one vague approval into a checklist, and each open query is visible until it is resolved.

You can do this in a spreadsheet with a status column per part (requested, lab dip sent, approved, rejected), or in a tool built for it. Colorsea, which we are building now, is designed for exactly this loop: you color each part of the garment flat, store your own codes, track lab-dip status per part, and send the factory one link where they confirm each code or raise a query against a single part.

What tools can you use to make a tech pack?

You have three realistic options.

• Illustrator plus a spreadsheet. Flats in Illustrator, BOM and measurements in Excel or Google Sheets, combined into a PDF. Cheap and flexible, but versioning is manual and color stays disconnected from the flats.
• Tech pack and PLM software. Dedicated tools keep flats, BOM, measurements, and versions in one place and export factory-ready PDFs. Worth it once you have several styles in development at once.
• Hiring a technical designer. A freelancer can build your first packs. Prices vary widely by region and garment complexity, so get quotes. Even if you hire out, learn to read and edit your own pack; you will be updating it after every sample.

For the color part specifically, it helps to see colorways on the actual garment before you commit to lab dips. Colorsea will let you color a hoodie, crewneck, t-shirt, joggers, six-panel cap, or sports jersey part by part, preview it on a real model photo, and export a PDF or CSV colorway sheet to attach to your pack. It is not launched yet, but you can try the free demo editor and color a garment flat today.

Tech pack checklist before you hit send

Run through this before every send, not just the first.

• Version number and date on the cover and in the file name
• Front and back flats, plus detail close-ups
• Every component in the BOM, including thread, labels, and packaging
• A color code for every part in every colorway
• Notes on which parts need lab dips and which use stock colors
• Measurements for the base size, with "how to measure" notes
• Tolerances for every point of measure
• Grading for the full size range, or a note that grading is to be confirmed
• Seam types, stitch types, and SPI
• Artwork files, print method, size, and measured position
• Label placement and care label content
• Packaging and folding instructions
• Revision log updated, with changes highlighted
• No number stated twice in two different places

Common tech pack mistakes to avoid

• Photos instead of flats. A photo shows the outside of one garment in one light. It does not show seam types or proportions.
• "Same as the reference." If the reference garment and your measurement chart disagree, the factory has to guess which wins. Say which.
• One color for the whole garment. Parts are dyed separately. Spec each one.
• No tolerances. Without them, you have no basis to reject an out-of-spec bulk order.
• Sending a new version without saying what changed. The factory will miss the change.
• Approving a PP sample in a hurry. Whatever you approve becomes the standard. A rushed sign-off now means living with the error across the whole order.

FAQ

How long does it take to make a tech pack?

For a simple t-shirt with one colorway, a founder working from a reference garment can usually draft a first version in a day or two. A hoodie or jersey with several fabrics, trims, prints, and colorways takes longer, mostly because of measurements and color callouts. Expect to keep updating it through every sample round, so the real work spreads across the whole development period, not one sitting.

Can I make a tech pack without design experience?

Yes. You need clarity, not drawing skill. Start with a reference garment you like, measure it flat, and use a flat template or library for the drawings. Most of a tech pack is careful specification: fabric weight and composition, colors per part, measurements, tolerances, and labels. If the flats are rough, a factory or freelancer can redraw them, but only you can decide the specs.

What is the difference between a tech pack and a BOM?

The bill of materials (BOM) is one section inside the tech pack. It lists every component that goes into the garment, such as fabric, rib, thread, trims, labels, and packaging, with specs, suppliers, and quantities. The tech pack is the full document, which also includes flats, color callouts, measurements, grading, construction notes, artwork placement, and the revision log.

Do I need Pantone codes in my tech pack?

You need a precise color reference for every part, and Pantone TCX codes are the most widely recognized option for apparel. Mill or supplier color codes work too, especially for rib, drawcord, and thread, where stock colors can save cost and time. Whatever system you use, send a physical swatch as the standard, because screens and printed PDFs do not show color accurately.

How many sample rounds should I expect?

It depends on the garment, the factory, and how complete your pack is. A typical path is proto, one or more fit samples, lab dips for each dyed part, then a pre-production sample before bulk. A clear, versioned tech pack with tolerances and per-part color callouts reduces guesswork, which tends to mean fewer rounds, but plan time and budget for at least two.

Should the factory make my tech pack for me?

Some factories offer to create one, which can work for a first sample. The risk is that their pack reflects their default fit, construction, and size grading rather than yours, and you may not own the file. Even if a factory or freelancer drafts it, keep your own editable master so you can change suppliers or factories without starting over.