Embroidery - What"s in a Name (or a Logo)?

Want to personalize your hat, clothing, duffle bag, etc.? Here’s how the process works:

Digitizing your logo

In order to embroider your logo onto a jacket, duffle bag, hat, or other product, the logo must first be digitized. This means that the logo has to be changed from an image file (such as a Photoshop file – psd, jpg, gif, etc.) into a file format that the embroidery machine understands. Digitizing a logo essentially involves telling the embroidery machine where to put the stitches. Software programs specifically developed for digitizing are used to create the stitch pattern that the embroidery machine will ultimately follow to create the embroidered logo. Digitizing costs in the United States normally run about $5.00 per thousand stitches. Sometimes you can find discounts from normal rates by looking overseas. For personalization of bags or clothing such as adding embroidered names or numbers, digitizing is usually a much simpler process (depending upon the font and size required), so digitizing fees are typically waived in those cases.

To estimate how much it will cost to have your logo digitized, you can normally send it directly to your digitizer or have your embroidery shop forward it to their digitizer. They can provide you with an estimate of the stitch count for your logo, which will determine the cost for digitizing and for embroidering each instance of your logo. Logos for can be simplfied for embroidery to reduce the cost while still retaining the logo’s pertinent features.

Once your logo has been digitized, it can be kept on file for future use. Also, if you already have your logo in an embroidery-ready digitized format, you can re-use it each time for you need to have your logo embroidered. Existing digitized files can often be easily altered to make them larger or smaller, and there is some flexibility in changing the colors of the logo by simply assigning different color threads to the stitches specified in the digitized logo.

Embroidering

After your logo has been digitized, a sample sew-out is typically done to ensure that the logo looks the way you want it to look. To speed up the process embroiderers often take a picture of the sew-out and email it to you. If necessary, they can also mail the physical sew-out. If a customer isn’t happy with the first sample, changes to the logo can be made so that it’s suitable. Usually companies can alter the ditigized logo at no additional charge. After final approval has been given by the customer, the embroiderer can proceed with embroidering the full order.

Lead Time

Normal lead time for completing and shipping an order that involves embroidery is between two and three weeks. Some companies allow for rush orders, and they normally charge a rush fee to have your order completed in less than their normal delivery time. If you check with a few different embroiderers or clothing retailers, you’ll usually find someone who can meet your deadline as long as it’s reasonable.