Buying guide
How to prepare a product development brief
A brief is not a drawing. It is the set of decisions a pattern maker needs in order to build something that can actually be manufactured, and every decision left out of it becomes an assumption in the quotation and a revision round in the sampling schedule. This guide sets out what a brief has to contain, what reference material helps most, and which decisions are worth making before you write it.
What it is for
A brief answers questions before they are asked
Every question a brief leaves open will be asked at some point. The only choice is whether it is answered before sampling, when the answer is free, or during revision, when it costs a round.
It is not the drawing
A drawing shows what the product looks like. A brief says what it is made of, how big it is, what is inside it, how it is branded and where it is going. A supplier can build from a brief with a rough sketch; they cannot build from a drawing alone.
It is a list of decisions
Shape, size, construction, materials, fill, inserts, branding, packaging, market and quantity. Ten decisions, each of which changes something about the order — and each of which somebody in your business already has an opinion about.
It becomes the specification
What you send becomes the basis of the quotation, then the sampling brief, then part of the specification sheet that governs bulk and every reorder after it. It is worth writing as a document you would be happy to be held to.
The brief
Ten fields, in the order they are decided
The order matters, because each field constrains the ones after it. Choosing a construction before deciding the size run produces a brief that has to be rewritten.
| Field | What to state | What an open field costs |
|---|---|---|
| Product and purpose | What the product is, which animal it is for, and what the play pattern is — carry, chew, chase, retrieve. | A construction chosen for the wrong play pattern, discovered on the first sample. |
| Construction | Plush, squeaky, no-stuffing, chew or interactive, and whether it is a new shape or an adaptation of an existing one. | This is the field that decides whether there is tooling, so leaving it open leaves the largest cost item open. |
| Size and grading | Finished dimensions, and the size run if the design is graded across sizes. | Proportions that change when the size changes, and a fill weight that has to be re-set for every size afterwards. |
| Materials | Shell fabric and pile where known, fill type and density, compound and hardness on moulded parts, and anything the product must avoid. | A fabric change after the first sample, which usually costs a round because pile height and stretch change how a pattern sews. |
| Features and inserts | Squeakers, rattles, crinkle layers, treat cavities, attachments, and where each one sits. | Insert placement is a pattern input. Deciding it late means rewriting the pattern, not adjusting a detail. |
| Branding | Where the logo goes and how it is applied — embroidery, woven label, printed tag, or moulded into a tool — with artwork attached. | A moulded logo decided after the tool is cut cannot be added without a tool change. |
| Packaging | Header card, hang tag, gift box, polybag or multi-pack, with the dieline if you have one and the carton configuration. | Packaging approved after the product is finished is the most common cause of a missed retail date. |
| Destination market | Where the goods ship and through which retail or marketplace channel. | The destination decides which test reports the order carries. Discovering it after production means testing a product that already exists. |
| Quantity and split | Total units, and how they divide across sizes, colourways and packaging formats. | The split matters more than the total, because it is what the minimum is calculated from. |
| Timing | The date the goods have to be on shelf, or the date they have to ship. | Without a date there is nothing to schedule against, and every stage is planned independently of the others. |
Reference material
What actually helps a pattern maker
Buyers often hesitate because they do not have a technical drawing. A drawing is useful but rarely essential; the material below is what a pattern maker reaches for first.
A physical reference product
The strongest input by a distance. A competing product, an old sample, or anything that shows the proportions and the hand feel. Half the questions a brief cannot answer are answered by a product on a table.
A dimensioned sketch
Rough is fine. What matters is that it carries overall dimensions and shows where the features sit, so the pattern is built at the right scale rather than scaled afterwards.
Photographs of what you mean
Photographs are good for colour, surface texture and detail; they are poor for proportion, because camera angle distorts a soft shape. Use them alongside a dimension rather than instead of one.
A fabric or colour reference
A swatch, a Pantone reference or a physical sample of the colour you mean. Colour names are not transferable between mills, so a name alone will not survive the process.
Brand artwork in a usable format
Vector artwork for a printed or embroidered logo, and the wording for any label or tag. Include care and origin text if you have it, because it has to fit the label you are specifying.
Existing packaging, if there is any
An existing dieline or a competitor's card shows the format you are working to, and it is faster than describing it. If the range has to match packaging you already sell, send that packaging.
Before you write it
Six decisions worth making first
These are the questions that, answered late, are the ones that cost a revision round. Answering them before the brief is written is the cheapest work in the project.
What makes this product different
If the answer is the shape, the shape has to be developed and that is an OEM project. If the answer is the brand and the packaging, the product may not need developing at all. Which it is changes the entire brief.
Whether the sound device is in or out
A squeaker changes the pattern, the fill and the seam order, and its placement is a pattern input. Adding one after the first sample is a new round, not a new component.
Who signs the sample off
Where comments arrive from three departments in sequence, each round of feedback costs a week. Name one reviewer and collect the others' comments into that single response.
Which market the first run ships to
The destination fixes the testing route. A brief that names the market is sampled to the standard it will be tested against; one that does not is sampled and then re-tested.
How many colourways the first run carries
Colourway count is one of the largest drivers of both the minimum and the sampling workload. Deciding it before the brief is written prevents it being decided by accident later.
Whether packaging is in scope now or later
Packaging approved with the sample shares a round with the product. Packaging approved afterwards is a second print job on a schedule the toy has already committed to.
Common mistakes
Four things that reliably cost a round
None of these is a failure of effort. They are all cases where a brief looked complete and was not, and they account for most of the avoidable revision rounds we see.
Describing the product and not the package
The toy and its packaging are two production jobs. A brief that covers one and not the other produces a sample that arrives finished and unpackable.
Giving a size without a proportion
"About 30 centimetres" leaves the height, width and body depth open. A soft toy at the right length and the wrong depth is a different product, and the difference is only visible physically.
Naming a colour instead of showing one
Colour names mean different things in different mills and different markets. A swatch or a Pantone reference is the only version of a colour that survives to bulk.
Leaving the market out
A toy destined for a market with stricter requirements has to be built to them from the first sample. Discovering the requirement after the third sample means the first three were built to the wrong standard.
Next
Where this guide leads
A brief starts the development process. These pages cover what happens to it, and what it will be quoted at.
What happens to the brief
The three kinds of sample, the six stages from brief to bulk, and what drives the number of revision rounds.
What it will be quoted at
Why no factory publishes one minimum, which decisions move it, and how to compare minimums quoted on different bases.
Where to send it
The RFQ form takes the brief directly, with fields for the specification, the packaging requirement and the destination market.
Send the brief, even if it is rough
An incomplete brief with clear questions is more useful than a finished one built on guesses. Send what you have and you will get back a sampling plan with the open points listed. Related reading: all buying guides and the sampling process.