Apparel & lifestyle merchandise — design & visualization

About the project We're producing a bespoke fanwear and lifestyle merchandise collection for a major professional football club (name shared with shortlisted candidates under NDA). The line is retail-focused and design-led - caps, tees, polos, hoodies, jackets, scarves, drinkware and more - aimed at a premium-but-commercial positioning. The direction is lifestyle and streetwear-influenced, not basic logo-on-blank merch: relaxed/boxy fits, bespoke detailing, custom trims, and a strong creative identity built around the club's colors and heritage. We're looking for skilled freelancers to support the design side of this program, with the potential for ongoing work across future collection drops. What we need We're assembling design capability and want to understand what you can offer. Please tell us which of the following you can deliver to a high standard (select all that apply): ☐ Creative / graphic design — original apparel and merch concepts, graphics, colorways, collection direction ☐ Apparel design — garment-level design: silhouettes, fits, panel/color-blocking, trims and construction detailing (adapted blocks, not necessarily full pattern-making) ☐ Technical packs — production-ready tech packs (specs, measurements, materials, trims, decoration methods) suitable for handing to a manufacturer ☐ 3D / photorealistic visualization — realistic mockups/renders of apparel and products for client presentation (e.g. CLO 3D, Browzwear, Blender, KeyShot, or advanced Photoshop mockup work) ☐ Presentation — assembling polished, branded pitch decks of the designs for non-specialist stakeholders Important: visualization matters A key part of this project is presenting designs to multiple non-specialist decision-makers. Polished, realistic, convincing visuals are critical to getting work approved efficiently. If you do visualization/rendering, please make this clear and show examples. The work The collection spans roughly a dozen baseline items initially, expanding to a fuller seasonal collection across more categories. We'll design more pieces than ultimately go into production. Designs must work within real manufacturing constraints (decoration methods, trims, fabrics) and defined target costs — we'll brief these. Apparel direction is bespoke but built on adapted standard blocks (not couture/from-scratch patterning). What to include in your response Which capabilities above you offer Portfolio — ideally apparel/merch work, and crucially showing how you present/deliver designs (mockups, decks) A short note on relevant experience (apparel brands, sports/merch, licensing work) Your rate structure — per design/concept, per tech pack, and/or day rate Typical turnaround for a small collection Whether you work solo or can bring complementary skills (e.g. a render partner) Shortlisted candidates will be briefed in full under NDA and may be asked to complete a small paid test concept.