Initially consideration needs to be given to the design, whilst for most customers this will be a logo or motif, with or without a strap line, often the colours within the logo may not suit the colour garment that they are being stitched on.
Avoid large blocks of colour / stitching – embroidery adds tension to the garment and large blocks of colour tend to be both uncomfortable to wear, create puckering in the garment and require a better standard of laundering.
Wherever possible reverse logo or motif colours out to compliment the garment colour rather than adding a block of background colour.
Embroidery threads are of a single colour, blends can be simulated in a block of colour by overlaying two or three colours, however the additional stitching will tend to be of poorer definition – blends cannot be replicated in text. Text on top of a colour block will again be of poorer definition.
In general embroidery threads are of a single thickness, so the same width of thread will be used in text of say 40mm in height as that of 5mm in height. The definition that embroidery can achieve is relative to the material that is being stitched – say a softshell which is arguably one of the best to embroider for definition will take a 4-5mm text and still be clear (subject to the font selection) whereas the same embroidery on a polo shirt would need text of 6mm in height. As a general guide try and keep text to a minimum height of 6mm.
In terms of colours embroidery thread colours are defined by thread numbers – we use Madiera threads and the pallet that we use has approx. 350 colour options. We can match to a Pantone number but this will be the closest match rather than the exact pantone. Again in terms of colours it must be remembered that embroidery threads will create a sheen of reflective light, as such it is possible to create a definition of colour by the thread stitching direction – so say the 2D image of a 3D box can be achieved in a single colour with good definition by altering the stitching direction in each of the facets.
The conversion of artwork to an embroidery file is called Digitisation – it is a skilled process whereby the digitiser will take your artwork and decide what sort of stitching – tatami for colour blocks – satin stitch for borders and text and apply directional information for the stitching. The exact file type for supplying artwork is not particularly important – what is important is that the artwork is of a sufficiently high quality so that the detail can be clearly seen – we usually work from .jpg’s or .pdf’s, either raster art (bitmaps) or vectors are equally good.
Should you wish to discuss your embroidery requirements – give our sales team a call – they will be delighted to help.
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