Flat sketches vs. hand sketches

Happy Friday all! Today's post is short and sweet for you. In case you've ever hear the term "flat sketch" and wondered what that meant, please see above. The image in this post is a sample sketch I made in Adobe Illustrator, often just referred to as AI. This is called a flat, fashion flat, or flat sketch. All those terms work and are used interchangeably at different places. Flats are cleaned up vector art drawings of your pen or pencil hand sketches. These are important to have in tech packs for the manufacturer to have a clear idea of what the garment should look like, and so that I can detail out all the construction/sewing information. They are also useful later in the production cycle to create different colorways (colors a garment comes in) on a line sheet (single sheet with all the colored flats) so you can get an idea of how a whole collection will look. Give me a napkin with a hand sketch and I will make you a flat!