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This is a show for burnt-out fashion designers (and TDs, PDs, patternmakers and beyond) who want more flexibility while still doing work they love. As a freelance fashion designer, you can build your fashion career on your own terms. Freelancing in fashion is the only way to get freedom in your day (instead of being tied to a desk). Whether you want to earn extra money on the side, fund your fashion brand, or replace your salary, the FDGP podcast will help you get there. Listen in for actionable tips and strategies to kickstart or grow your career as a freelance fashion designer, build your confidence, and create the life you want. Hosted by $100k+ fashion freelancer Sew Heidi, the show features interviews and strategy sessions with successful freelance fashion designers from around the world who've ditched toxic fashion jobs and taken control of their own destinies. This is the only place to get REAL insights from REAL freelancers who have built REAL careers on their own terms. (Formerly the Successful Fashion Freelancer podcast.)
Heidi [00:00:00]:
In this episode, we are diving into a real issue that many freelance fashion designers face, competing with those super low price tech packs that some clients think are a bargain. You've probably seen the gigs, tech packs offered for $10 or $40, and you've wondered, how do I compete with that? Does anyone even understand the value of a professional tech pack? So to shed some light on this, I decided to conduct an experiment on Upwork. I hired 5 freelancers at 5 different price points, $10, $17, $40, $100, and $150 to see what you get for a tech pack at each level. And let me tell you, the results were entertaining and shocking. Stick with me as I walk through the results explaining why these low priced options can lead to big problems for clients and why you shouldn't undervalue your own work. By the end, you'll see why quality tech packs are worth the investment and why it's okay to charge what you're worth. Now this was originally done as a video on YouTube, and I've linked that in the show notes where you can watch the full breakdown. But the lessons here were so valuable that I had to bring it to the podcast feed.
Heidi [00:01:12]:
So if you wanna watch the full video, I highly recommend you do that, but also I will walk through what we learned. I've also linked a download to my Tech Pack template, which would have saved all these freelancers quite a bit, plus my guide to pricing your freelance services in case you're not sure how much you should be charging. PS, it is a lot more than the freelancers I hired in this experiment. Alright. The experiment. Here's how we set this up. We found 5 freelancers, and we made sure that they all had good reviews and that they all had specific experience creating tech packs. Each one had to meet a baseline standard from the package that we bought off the shelf from them.
Heidi [00:01:51]:
It needed to include sketches with multiple views, colorways, a size chart, a bill of materials, also known as a BOM, BOM, and source files. To keep things fair, we didn't ask for any revisions. We just answered any initial questions they had and let them deliver what they promised. Here's how the project panned out. Starting with the $10 tech pack, our freelancer, Julia, agreed to the project, but then she ghosted us. She said, yeah. Sounds good. We followed up.
Heidi [00:02:21]:
We followed up. We followed up. She never replied, and she never got anything. Not surprising for a $10 tech pack. Next up was Sonny with a $17 tech pack. Sonny delivered, but about halfway through, he requested a rate increase. This was awkward for everyone. While I agree that $17 is low, we didn't ask for this rate.
Heidi [00:02:42]:
I'll remind you that we bought these products off of the freelancers' Upwork deliverables. They had them listed, and we just bought them off the shelf. So dear listener, this is a reminder why it's essential to set fair prices upfront. When you don't, it is easy to feel frustrated and tempted to ask for more halfway through the project. This makes you look unprofessional, and it leaves clients with a really bad impression. Alright. Now aside from Sonny asking for a rate increase halfway through, let's talk about his tech pack. What did we actually get for $17? We did not get much.
Heidi [00:03:16]:
The design that he drew and specked didn't even match our napkin sketch from the project brief. There was a lot of details that were completely misinterpreted, and a lot of his call outs were vague or wrong. For instance, he listed colors using hex codes instead of pantones, and he referenced other garments for size specs, like literally a completely other garment. It was a raglan pullover, our design, and his specs had a satin sleeve, it had a hoodie, and it had a kangaroo pouch. Our design did not have a hoodie or a kangaroo pouch. He literally copied specs from someone else's design and just threw them in our tech pack. There were so many other mistakes in Sunny's tech pack, and for $17 it was completely unusable. So let's bump the budget up to $40 and see what we get.
Heidi [00:04:08]:
Our $40 freelancer, Irene, provided a much better experience. Her tech pack included Pantone color references, which was a welcome upgrade from Sunny's hex codes. The design was more cohesive overall and it showed that she had invested a bit more time. However, there were still a lot of details missing, including one really important one, the BOM. There was no BOM. If you are new to fashion, a BOM, a bill of materials, is like a recipe for your garment, and it details every fabric, every trim, and every material that goes into the physical final product. Without it, you're asking for so many mistakes in production, which can lead to a ton of back and forth with your client with the factory. There were so many other details missing in this $40 tech pack from Irene, like specific construction callouts and specs for the zipper and trims that left a lot of questions about how the design should actually be made.
Heidi [00:05:02]:
Despite these gaps, Irene's tech pack was better than the $17 base we got from Sunny, but I still would not have felt comfortable sending it to a factory and expecting to get a proto back that matched the initial vision. So what happens when we bump the price up a little bit more? Next up was Joelle's tech pack for a $100. Joelle's was actually the best tech pack that we got. She was professional. She communicated clearly, and she included everything that we needed upfront without us having to ask. It was well organized and it had a proper POM guide, points of measure, but there were still a lot of questions about trims, construction details, and finishes. While it was the winner and the best from this experiment, there were still too many holes in it to have made me comfortable to use it for production. Yes, I could have gotten a proto with this tech pack, but there would have been so much back and forth and questions from the factory and multiple revisions that it would have resulted in so much wasted time and money that it would have been better to have invested in a higher quality tech pack up front.
Heidi [00:06:00]:
Alright. Now last up, I was holding my breath for our our $150 tech pack from Tanner. At a first glance, the design looked clean, but as I scanned through all the pages, there were so many critical gaps. Measurements were missing. There were hardly any technical specs and callouts, and there was literally no BOM at all. While Tanner was supposed to include a graded spec chart that was included in the package that we purchased, all he did was take our size chart and plop it in here. Dear listener, if you are new to tech packs or technical design, here's your heads up that a size chart is not the same as a set of graded specs. Honestly, it was hard to choose the worst tech pack between sunnies for 17 and tanner's for a $150.
Heidi [00:06:52]:
They were both quite bad. So in this example, I guess you don't always get what you pay for. Now those were the 5 tech packs that I purchased, and as I shared this experiment with my community, a lot of people asked why did I buy so many low priced tech packs. And the reason is a couple fold. First up, we see a lot of low price tech packs on Upwork, and so I kind of wanted to buy what was out there in the market. Next, I wanted to show all of you freelancers out there what you get for such low rates. Right? It's easy to look at these prices and think, how can I compete with a 40 or 100 or even a $150 tech pack? And the truth is it is because those freelancers are not delivering a quality product. You are worth your price, and I hope this experiment shows you that.
Heidi [00:07:46]:
Next up is for the brands out there who don't know any better and are hiring cheap talent. Unfortunately, these brands may not have the knowledge to look at a tech pack and know if it's good or not. But if you're getting too good of a deal, I can almost guarantee it that you will pay for it elsewhere. In this case, it's gonna be a lot more expensive in the production process. Now, as I said at the beginning, I realized this experiment works better as a video, but it was such an amazing process. And we got such great feedback from the video that I wanted to share it here because I think that the lessons learned were too valuable. So in case you missed it on YouTube, I wanna make sure that it crossed your podcast feed. If you want to check out the full video, which I highly suggest you do, it's really interesting to see all the tech packs that these freelancers created, and you can see firsthand why your more expensive tech pack is worth a lot more.
Heidi [00:08:36]:
I will put the link to the video in the show notes. Also, friendly reminder, you can grab my tech pack template and my freelance pricing sheet. Again, it's all in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening. It's been great having you here.