Technical flats — Flatspec

Step 04Image

A technical drawing, not a visual

Production rooms read outlines. A rendered image with fabric drape and soft shadow looks better and tells them less, because the construction disappears into the shading.

Closed outlines, consistent proportion, front and back aligned
Seam lines solid, stitch runs dashed, in the usual convention
Detail views at a larger scale for collar, cuff and placket
SVG vector as well as PNG, so detail survives being zoomed into
No shading, no gradients, no drop shadow
No body, no mannequin, no model, no face
No fabric texture or drape rendering

These constraints are enforced rather than encouraged. A flat carrying shading or a body cannot be saved against a style, so it cannot reach an export.

Front and back, same scale

SVG vector

Front

Back

Shading: None
Body: None
Base size: M
Formats: SVG, PNG

01Detail views

Drawn larger where the construction lives

The parts a production room asks about are the parts too small to read at garment scale, so they come out again at their own scale with their own dimensions.

Collar

Stand height and point length dimensioned at centre back, with the top-stitch line shown as a dashed run.

Cuff

Cuff depth dimensioned at the edge, button positions and spacing marked, buttonhole orientation drawn.

Placket

Placket width across the folded edges, stitch lines dashed, and button spacing dimensioned down the run.

Seams named by stitch class

“Double stitched” means at least three different things depending on who is reading it. A stitch class does not. Construction notes carry the class alongside the drawing, so the instruction survives the journey.

Next: mark where each measurement is taken

Plain seamSSa-1

Overlocked edgeEFd-1

Twin needleLSc-2

Turned and stitched hemEFb-1

02Prints and colourways

A repeat is only useful with its unit measured

A printer needs the repeat unit in millimetres and a method the artwork suits. A tiling image on its own does not tell them either.

Repeat unit: Given in millimetres, marked on the artwork itself, so it survives being emailed on its own.
Suggested method: Screen, digital or rotary, based on the colour count and the detail in the artwork.
Colour references: Placeholder references you replace with whatever colour system your supplier works in. We do not tie you to one.
Colourways: The same flat repeated with the areas hatched differently, so a three-colour option can be read in black and white.
Origin: Generated artwork is recorded as generated with its parameters kept. Uploaded artwork requires you to confirm you hold the rights.

The dashed square is the repeat unit, dimensioned in millimetres beneath it.

Three identical shirt technical flats in a row with areas filled by line hatching of different densities to indicate different colourways. — Colourways are distinguished by hatching as well as by colour reference, so a printed pack still reads correctly.

03One more distinction

A render is not a flat

Both have a use. Only one of them belongs in a tech pack, and sending the wrong one is a common and expensive way to start a sampling round.

Split image: on the left a strict flat technical line drawing of a shirt with no shading, on the right the same shirt drawn with soft shading and folds, marked with a red cross. — The shaded drawing on the right looks more finished and specifies less. Where exactly does that hem sit? How deep is that pocket? The shading has hidden both. What we produce is always the drawing on the left.