how to delegate clothing design work
Consistently designing & executing high quality clothing collections is an extensive process of work, which can become incredibly overwhelming if not managed correctly, this is where delegation becomes essential..
Often times, new brand owners in the process of starting a clothing brand believe they will be able to design & produce their collections alone, without the help of a team.
While this is possible for one person if you learn proper design skills & the process of design, it’s only manageable if you delegate the workload in other areas of brand operations, such as :
Marketing & Social Media
Clothing Production, Shipping & Logistics
Business Management
Website / E-Com Maintenance
Customer Service & Communications
Photo Campaign Planning
The list goes on, the point is : If you are not delegating workload in some capacity, you will not have the time for one person to consistently design new clothing collections, while simultaneously managing essential business operations.
If you choose to do all of the design work yourself, you must delegate business operations work to someone else, in order for the business to function smoothly.
Conversely, if you choose to manage business operations yourself, you must delegate design work to a team of creatives which can execute on your vision, in order to maintain a consistent creative output.
In the case of delegating design work, you as the brand owner must learn to act as creative director, while delegating the design process of your vision to an efficient creative team.
In this article we break down a few of the key areas which you can implement design work delegation, to effectively improve the efficiency & quality of your brands design process.
When it comes to designing a clothing collection, here are the key roles to consider :
Creative Director
The creative director is a single individual who will direct the design team, effectively conveying the vision of how the garments, graphics & entire collection as a whole should look.
Typically, when delegating design work, the role of creative director should be the brand owner, as this is the person who truly understands the brand identity & vision.
You as the brand owner / creative director must be able to effectively convey the creative direction of the brand or collection to the design team, which will then execute design based on this direction.
For example, when we work with brands to design clothing collections, the brand owner automatically assumes the creative director role for the project.
We start by asking a series of essential questions to give us a complete understanding of the brand identity, collection theme, direction, and much more.
Once we have this strong understanding, we then execute the design process based on the creative direction given to us by you.
Throughout the design process, the team will continue to communicate the designs with you, in order to maintain your creative input & ideas on changes to be made, resulting in a cohesive end result for your vision.
A team of informed designers with an aligned vision, at the direction of a single creative director (you) will increase productivity, while resulting in high quality & cohesive collections.
This is the creative role which we do not recommend delegating as a brand owner.
Technical Garment Designer
This role includes the responsibilities of technical garment illustration, tech packing, garment design specifications, measurement spec, size grading spec, etc.
The technical designers will create & adjust tech pack information as needed throughout the sampling process, ensuring all changes are documented for manufacturing clarity.
Professionally designed tech packs created by experienced professionals which include extensive technical details will result in well balanced garment fittings across all graded sizes, as well as clear communication for factory reference.
Opting for cheap tech pack services will often result in manufacturing confusion, inaccurate samples, as well as imbalanced measurement specs across sizes.
Expert technical garment designers will save you not only money on sample rounds, but even more importantly, time.
Graphic Designer
In this role, the responsibility is to design creative, high quality graphics & embellishments which fit well within the brand identity, collection theme & overall brand ethos.
Graphic designers will design & prep files for the specific print, embroidery, or other format of embellishment to be implemented in the garment collection, as well as create mockups & detailed information files to be included in the tech packs for accurate factory reference.
Professional, high quality graphic artwork & embellishment design is critical to the visual appeal of a garment or collection, as well as the identity of a brand, and therefore its success.
Opting for cheap & fast graphic design will almost certainly result in lack lustre visual appeal & quality.
We believe graphic design is one of the most fundamental qualities which can separate a brand from the rest of the market.
Pattern Maker
The responsibility of the pattern maker is to review the technical garment designs & tech packs, then translate them into sewable pattern pieces for the factory to use in producing the garment sample, then once a sample is approved, to grade the patterns for separate sizes.
While this can be left to the factory, typically factory created patterns will remain the property of the factory for future use with other clients.
For this reason, we recommend to create your own patterns, in order to own & retain all technical information about your product designs for future production.
Digital Garment Designer / CLO3D
The implementation of new technology such as CLO3D has revolutionized the way which we can efficiently & accurately create clothing collections.
It offers many benefits including the creation of digital patterns, pattern grading, highly detailed & accurate 3D garment mockups to view before production, and much more.
Most importantly, this type of software allows you to create digital avatars based on your individual body measurement spec or the spec of your target customer, allowing you to truly visualize how a garment will look in true detail down to the fabric & details, as well as fit on the target body type, all before producing a physical sample.
The result of this is much more accurate design, and far less costly physical sample rounds to achieve the desired garment.
This will save time, and even more money.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many roles in the process of designing a clothing collection.
Wether you’re starting a brand alone or with a partner, it’s essential to understand that as you grow, workload delegation in some capacity will be essential to the growth, efficiency & longevity of your brand.
Disclaimer : this is not business advice, only reiteration of our research & experience working with clothing brands. Use information at your own discretion.
