How technical are the flat sketches in The Fashion Design Book?

Let’s talk about how technical the flat sketches are in The Fashion Design Book. Imagine a scale of fashion sketches.

On one end, you have fashion illustrations, which are elongated, heavily stylized, and rendered. They are not so technical and more artistic based.

On the other end, you have flat technical sketches used in the garment industry during the product creation cycle. These technical flats have lots of details and measurements written, they are black and white, and they are more proportional to the body.

If I were to give a rating on the technicality of the sketches in the book, I would say it’s somewhere in the middle, but a bit closer to the technical flat because it is a flat sketch and not a fashion illustration.

Why did I not go full-on technical in this library of silhouettes and style details? Well, it’s because many people will use this book to create concept designs and not only use it for technical flats.

Additionally, since you’re using the book as a reference guide, you’ll likely be changing a lot of the style detail locations, adding design lines, and mixing/matching parts of the garments, which means a lot of the technical aspects of the sketches may no longer apply. I leave it up to the designer to choose what finishing details they want, like a single-needle topstich, double-needle topstitch, or other stitching details.

Of course, if someone wants to make their flat sketches more technical, all the details can be added to a tech pack sketch. But since a lot of home sewists and designers just want to draw to help conceptualize, this is the level the book focuses more on.

When flat sketches are totally flat and overly technical, it can be hard for a lot of people to visualize the design. In other videos, I talk about these less-technical flats and how they help merchandisers, salesmen, and buyers to more easily visualize the products.
For many people, the super fine technical details and overly calculated images can be difficult to “sell” the ideas.

Even though styling is not a general practice in flat sketches, sometimes a bit of styling can help many people in the visualization process. With styling, I am referring to slightly curving hems instead of making them totally straight, having extra lines indicating fullness or wrinkles, or even cuffing hems (folding the hem of pants or sleeves up)

Additionally, since you can use the book as a reference library for drawing fashion illustrations, you will notice a little styling sprinkled throughout the book.