Creative Graphics Solutions
ApparelGoing the Distance: Sierra Designs uses
creative software tools to streamline it's
Designs & Development process“We have the same number of people on our designteam today that we did in 1993. That year, we might
have created 10 new designs. Last year, we created anaverage of 63 per season.”
Woody Blackford
Director of Outerwear Design and Development
Sierra Designs Canada

SPOTLIGHT
Sierra Designs Canada
www.sierra-designs.com

CHALLENGE
To streamline the apparel-design
process from initial conception
through manufacturing

SOLUTION
CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite

BENEFITS
CorelDRAW's versatility andflexibility provide greater design
freedom and improve ability tocommunicate with manufacturers
for faster, more accurate production

The Story
Sierra Designs got its start in San Fransisco in 1965 asa manufacturer of outdoor equipment and personal
apparel. Sierra Designs Canada was founded in 1982 as
an exclusive Canadian licensee of the brand. Currently
based in Brampton Ontario, the company also operates
a manufacturing facility in Foymount, Ontario.
“The business has changed a lot over the years,”
remarks Woody Blackford, Director of Outerwear
Design and Development at Sierra Designs Canada.
“Outdoor apparel used to be pretty utilitarian andmostly for men, with a few unisex garments tossed
into the mix. Now it's about 50-50 men's andwomen's. While our clothes still need to be functional,
these days they have to be fashionable, too. That's
where the fun comes in.”

The Challenge
The evolution of the outdoor-apparel industry and thecorporate success of Sierra Designs have both produced
challenges for the company. Fashion-savvy consumers
and an increasingly competitive marketplace demand
increasingly greater flexibility and creativity from theSierra Designs team—not to mention an ever-wider
selection of clothing.
At the same time, the company deals with some of

the most powerful retail partners in the world:
corporations that expect nothing short of the absolute
best in terms of quality and on-time delivery. And, inaddition to its domestic manufacturing facility, Sierra
Designs' apparel division depends on partnerships with
contract manufacturers overseas in Asia.
Design, for the Sierra team, has therefore become acomplex process in which clear communication at
every stage is critical to success. CorelDRAW has
helped Blackford and his colleagues achieve thatclarity in a number of surprisingly powerful ways.

The Solution“I used CorelDRAW from the first release,” says
Blackford, “designing T-shirts back in university. Eventhen, the preview capability was crucial: you could
show people what you were doing and make changes
in real time.”
When Blackford joined Sierra Designs in 1993, thecompany was already using CorelDRAW. Over theyears, as its design requirements evolved, CorelDRAW
evolved along with them.
“CorelDRAW has never held us back,” observesBlackford. “It's grown with us, with the technologies
we use.”A case in point is CorelDRAW's handling of color. In the“CorelDRAW lets us
work without limits.
I can't imagine what
we'd do without it.”early days, Sierra Designs tended to stick within a basic
pallet of reds and blues: no more. The interoperability ofCorelDRAW allows Blackford and his colleagues to add
plug-ins such as Pantone color queues to increase theiroptions. While output devices often introduce variances,CorelDRAW has the flexibility to make adjustments easily.
Perhaps the greatest advantage Sierra Designs has
gained by using CorelDRAW, however, has to do withthe specification packages it creates to support themanufacturing process.

It's a long way from the not-so-old days of marking
garments with chalk and shipping them back to thefactory by courier.

The Benefits
The renderings that Blackford and his team create inCorelDRAW are so detailed and of such high qualitythat they actually reduce the number of iterations
required to create a finished garment. That amounts toan important time- and cost-saving gain in efficiency.
At the same time—according to Sierra Designs' Vicepresident of Operations, Dennis Koop—the ability tobuild comprehensive spec packages is invaluable whenworking with manufacturers on the other side ofthe world.

From concept to creation
At the beginning of each new design season, Sierra
Designs uses CorelDRAW to map out its plans.
“We identify all the different kinds of garments andstyles we'll need and build these into a single, at-a-glancemap,” explains Blackford. “Over time, we fill the map inwith images of the actual designs we're working on.”He observes that a key advantage of CorelDRAW is its
ability to preserve the entire trail of iterations and maintaina complete record of the evolution of each design.
Sierra Designs selects winning options from many
designs proposed; these are adapted from thumbnails
into detailed sketches that can be shipped out for
prototyping.
“What we actually send,” says Blackford, “is a 17-page
spec package of graphic designs, technical drawings,
measurements, instructions—all created using
CorelDRAW. Anything we want to include, we'reable to include.”This package becomes the vehicle for allcommuni-cation going forward. When prototypes
are received, Blackford and his colleagues take digital
pictures of various elements, import them into
CorelDRAW, and make comments electronicallyinserting textual instructions (and visualmanipulations) overtop of the images.
Essentially, they're able to annotate
the prototype and return
comments to themanufacturer inreal time.

“It cuts through the language barrier,” says Koop,“by allowing you to communicate in both pictures andwords. It accelerates your process; you can be clearer
in your instructions. There's less need to go back andforth with questions. When you're separated by a
12-hour time difference, that's extremely helpful.”
Koop estimates that, in the prototyping process alone,CorelDRAW cuts the time it takes to progress from one
iteration to the next by 20 to 25 percent. He notes witha smile that, in the past, designers' comments would
often be met with questions. Today, he routinely
receives emails from manufacturers stating, simply:“All is very clear. Thank you.”
A final benefit Sierra Designs gains by using CorelDRAW
has to do with the reusability of graphics. Extremelyportable, CorelDRAW files can be converted into otherformats. As a result, images used in the design process
may end up on the website, for example, or in a season's
promotional workbooks.
Woody Blackford sums up the advantages succinctly,
saying: “CorelDRAW lets us work without limits. I can't
imagine what we'd do without it.”

Customer Contact:
Sierra Designs Canada
100 Corporation Drive
Brampton, Ontario
Phone: 905 792 6055
www. sierra-designs.com

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