Freelance Bag Designers – What to Avoid

If you are looking to produce a range of bags, rucksacks, luggage or sports accessories, then you will need to start the process with a good design that you can develop into samples and eventually production.

The design is the first stage of the entire process and finding the perfect bag designer to create your designs is critical. Get this wrong at the start of the process and every stage of the development and production will suffer. Get this right and the process will become much more seamless. It’s therefore important you invest in the research and make sure you work with a designer that is capable of creating a bag design that not only fits your brief but they can then see the bag design through the development, samples and finally into production.

What does this mean?

So, a bag and rucksack designing is no different to any other product design. The designer not only needs to understand your brief but critically, they need to understand where the backpack will be produced and have full knowledge of the factories capabilities and the costs associated with these.

To give this some context, imagine you have a building plot and you wanted to build your own house and therefore you need to find an architect. You would only contract an architect that not only understands your brief but also had the knowledge and experience to build their designs within your target budget.

If an architect doesn’t understand how to build a house and the associated costs to each element, all you will end up with is a beautiful drawing of a house and you will then need to look for someone to take this drawing and build it within your budget. The problem is, builders need precise instructions, dimensions, specifications and nominated suppliers of all of the materials used. This is no different to a backpack factory, which will also need all of this detailed information so that they can sample your bag design and the cost price hits your target price.

In the main, factories are the equivalent of the builder and are only responsible for the timelines and quality of the building process, but they are never responsible for deciding how large windows should be or where the window should be placed within the building.

These details all need to be decided, approved and then specified so the builder (or factory) can simply follow the instructions and construct the product to your specific requirements.

The designer, therefore, needs to understand what skills the bag factory have and to have a suitable factory in mind before they even start to put pencil to paper. Unless they know which factory will produce the goods and the cost of any specific manufacturing processes, then the designer is working blindfold.

Once the design has been signed off, the same designer needs to create a Tech Pack for each bag design they have created. This tech pack needs to specify the fabrics, trims and components and also the manufacturing process for the bag. All of these need to be considered concerning the suitability, style but also cost.

The tech pack will then need to include detailed scale drawings for the factory to follow when they cut the patterns for the bags and a BOM (Bill of manufacturing) that specifies exactly what each component is, where the bag factory can buy them from, the quantity needed and the colour and reference for each colourway you want to produce.

When selecting your bag designer, make sure they not only have the experience to create the tech packs but also have a suitable bag supplier and can manage the process of sampling and bulk production, so that they are responsible for delivering a product that answers your brief in terms of style, function, quality and price.

If you are looking to launch a range of rucksacks, sports bags, luggage or accessories, then get in touch here for your FREE quotation.

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