You bet. Well, probably. In general if we can poke a needle through it, we can embroider it. There are, of course, a variety of exceptions. Get in touch with us and we can discuss the item(s). In the case of customer supplied items, we are unable to replace items that may be damaged on the machines. (Very rare.)
We can produce high end embroidery from nearly any image. Prefereably a high-quality print-ready image. Vector format is even better. A scan or photo of a business card isn’t ideal, but let’s have a look at what you’ve got.
If you do not have a logo or image we do have stock designs we can pull from (this is usually for things like baby blankets and other such personalized items), or we also have access to a team of talented graphic designers that can create just the right logo for you.
Now that we have your logo or image we need to discuss what it’s going on and where as this will dictate certain design methods as well as size limitations. As soon as we get a short list of design locations and sizes, we can probably work up your pricing. We have techniques and methods to estimate what your final stitch count will be. Since we ‘block’ ranges of stitch counts together we don’t have to nail the number 100% to give you an accurate price. We can price your garments and the embroidery separately or combine them into a all-in-one price. If all is agreeable at this point…we’ll discuss a deposit if neccesary and then move on to digitizing.
Great question!!! This is where the real work starts.
Embroidery equipment is nothing more than a fancy sewing machine with a frame that moves backwards, forwards, and side to side. It puts in a single stitch, moves to another spot, makes another stitch, and repeats until your logo appears.
Digitizing is the process where we create a set of instructions for the machine to follow. (Stitch, move, repeat.) This is the ’embroidery file’ that everybody has heard about. There are many different embroidery machines and many different embroidery file formats, but in the end they are all exactly the same thing: a set of x-y coordinates. Back in the early days this information was literally punched into a paper tape. Many people still refer to embroidery files as ‘tapes’.
Digitizing makes or breaks the embroidery. 95% of the final product quality is due to the skill and insight of the digitizer. We use a combination of in-house and outsourced digitizing to make sure you get the best stitches we can lay down.
Absolutely! Although we’re not sure why.
Many people make the mistake of thinking this is a graphic file, and that there is inherently some sort of ‘property’ to be owned or protected regarding the file. Realistically this just isn’t true. It’s a digital version of those old-school rolls of paper tape. Their greatest value is to whoever created them (us) for whatever machine they use (Tajima, in our case).
Having said that, we will happily send you a copy of the file if you request it. Some people just feel better knowing they have a copy of the file and making people feel good is what we’re all about!
That depends.
Some companies try to attach a digitizing cost to the size of the logo being embroidered. Some try to do it based on number of stitches. Some even just flat-rate digitize based on garment location. We believe these pricing strategies to be flawed. We generally charge for digitizing time, and this depends on design complexity.
A large design (say for a jacket back) that may have big block letters and large shapes may have a huge amount of stitches, but is really quick and simple to digitize. Conversely, a smaller hat or left chest design might have complex layering, multiple color changes, fine detail, small text, and a myriad of other things that are time consuming to create embroidery for.
We’ll quote you a fair price for your digitizing once we’ve determined where it’s going and how big it’s going to be.
We’ve already gone over garments, placements, quantities, etc by now so now you sit back, relax, and wait while we bring in your blank garments and drop the needles!
Better question: When do you need it?
We do not stock any blanks. We bring them in for each and every order. With the exeption of customer-supplied garments it’s at least a week before we can even get the items into the production line. But that’s the only time we can plan around. Some orders we can fit in the schedule right away, some we must wait for a bigger block of time to complete.
If you have a target date you are trying to achieve, just let us know so we can do our best to meet it. We much prefer to work backwards from that date, rather than forwards from today.