Why Hire a Designer?

For most people who design a product, it typically starts with a sketch. For the crafty product people among us, the next step involves constructing a rough prototype. However, if you lack advanced design or engineering skills, it may be challenging to move beyond sketches and crude prototypes. This is where hiring a professional product designer becomes important.

Aside from being able to provide guidance on how to create a prototype of your product, your designer will be able to take your rough designs and convert them into a required production document called a tech pack.

A tech pack, or technical package, is the blueprint of a product. The purpose of a tech pack is to show a factory how to manufacture your product. For the factory to understand how to build your product, every tiny detail must be included in the design documents. Depending on the complexity of your product, this may require a substantial amount of written and visual information.

How to Hire a Product Designer?

Hiring a product designer is not difficult. Gig economy websites like Upwork and Fiverr are great places to find a professional freelance designer or engineer. However not all designers have the same skills, so do your due diligence. Make sure the designer you chose has detailed tech packs in their portfolio. While you will find people to design your tech pack for $5 per hour, the result will likely be low quality. Experienced designers typically range from $35 to $60 per hour while quality engineers may cost more than $100 dollar per hour.

The time it takes to complete product design documents is dependent on the type of product and its complexity. To give you a frame of reference, design documents for most simple apparel products only take a couple hours for an experienced designer to complete. Regardless of cost, your tech pack investment will pay off tenfold in time saved when you begin your manufacturing process.

To learn more about how to create a tech pack and get connected with Blacksmith’s trusted network of professional designers and engineers, sign up for the Blacksmith Academy workshop on product development or Contact Us directly.