New Year’s Business Resolution

Warning: Somewhat of a rant coming down the pike)

  

Sometimes, in the course of doing business, you have those days (or customers) that make you want to grab you keys, lock the door, get in the car and drive til the gas runs out without looking back. Of course you don’t but it isn’t because the fantasy doesn’t occur to you.

Our business is creative and technical and wonderful and hectic.  In this new year, I’ve made a few business resolutions that are intended to preserve my sanity while dealing with customers, deadlines and being pulled in different directions.

I have a tendency to skip over my own rules and procedures that I have in place sometimes causing issues that are the reason I created them in the first place. You know…. When you trust a customer  (or employee) and they disappoint.  This makes me my own worst enemy.

I also sometimes allow people to talk me into (or out of) things I know better than to do… either a heavily discounted price for a sob story or including multiple versions of a design without charging an editing fee for my time.  I can be a bit “lax” about invoice collections, late fees or allowing customers to go past their terms. All this does is teach customers that your time is not valuable and, believe me, they rarely appreciate it and expect it from then on.

 Lastly, I sometimes let customers dictate things I KNOW won’t work in the name of service to appease them and prove it. Customer asking for lettering that’s too small for the application or fabric type or trying to cram WAY too much text into a tiny area of the design will demand that I try it any way and then say, “Oh yea, that’s too small” or ‘That doesn’t work”.  *eye roll*  Of course they expect me to redo it at no charge that way it should have been from the beginning.

You know, I’ve been digitizing commercially for over 22 years and I can tell by looking at a design what will work and what will not.  I know better than to let customers run me, but we all want to please our customers so we deal with it and call it service. 

This year, my resolution is to follow my own rules and stand firm on the procedures I’ve set in place.  Work smarter, stick with my pricing schedule and stop being a pushover with my time. If I have to “fire” a few customers, then so be it.  After all, It’s not personal, It’s business.

Rant over!  Off the soapbox now!  Onward and Upward!

Any of these issues sound familiar?   Do you need to organize better?  Stick to your prices?  Stand by your procedures or create some? 

What are your business resolutions for 2016?  Do share!

What the Font are we talking about? - Embroidery Machine Text

People ask about lettering all the time.  Minimum sizing, font styles, keyboard vs. digitized, are all valid questions.  Here’s a quick primer on machine embroidered text.

Most embroidery designs with lettering are company logos of some sort, which is mostly what commercial embroiders do.  Lettering is important because it carries the pertinent information the client wants people to see, marketing the company name and other business information.

I only use keyboard lettering if it is an exact match to the design (or in the case of multiple names for personalizations) and even when I do, I always have to edit or “clean” it to ensure that it will sew properly and have correct pull compensation.* The rest of the time, it’s more effective to digitize the lettering by hand. It almost takes more time to edit the “canned”* text and the customer gets lettering that exactly matches their art.

That being said, customers will sometimes tell you what font they want on their designs naming a print font they like.  You should know that some embroidery fonts are named the same as their print counterparts but many are not.  Likewise, different embroidery softwares may have different names for the same font.  Certainly, not all print fonts make good embroidery styles.

You should also know that not all embroidery softwares do a great job on keyboard lettering. Many do not, therefore, you should understand what good lettering looks like and how proper characters are pathed and formed to determine if your software is creating letters correctly.  No software is perfect which is why there will always be things you will and should adjust. This is one place where it becomes apparent that all embroidery softwares are not created equal and the cream rises to the top. (IMHO Wilcom has dedicated more time and years of experience in creating their algorithms for lettering and consequently has some of the best keyboard lettering results on the market;  Melco a close second. ) (and yes, I used the W word and the M word in the same sentence)

You can purchased additional coded fonts to add to your keyboard lettering from the manufacturer of your software. These have a specific extension and are created to work with your software program.  (You can also purchase stylized “fonts” online which are really just separately digitized letters that can be used for monograms or to spell words and names.  Each letter is a separate file and you must paste them together to do so)

When using keyboard fonts, follow the software creator’s parameters for each font including size range and join method.* There is a reason they give you that information; you’ll get much better results. Not all fonts can sew effectively at a minimum size of ¼”

Remember, much about the way lettering sews has to do with the fabric also. Nylons and twills can handle smaller text better than knits and denims, sewing the exact same size and font. Be sure to use the correct densities, underlay and traveling stitches for crisp letters.

In the end, “canned” fonts can save you time if you get familiar with the ones in your software and understand their limitations. Oh, and one last thing. Many softwares have a true type font conversion which sounds great in theory but don’t bother. I haven’t seen one yet that didn't suck.

·         “Canned” fonts – slang for keyboard created, pre-digitized coded text

·         Pull compensation – a setting related to stitching that increases width to compensate for the pull of the fabric which draws inward due to thread tension.

·         Join Method – how the software configures the path of the letters and where the crossover stitch between letters will be.

Donna Lehmann has been in the commercial side of the industry for 22 years.  For more information on NeedleUp’s Digitizing services, email Donna at donna@needleup.com or call 303-287-6633 for info and pricing.  Visit www.needleup.com/gallery  to see some of our most recent work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is Embroidery Digitizing part of Colorado’s new moral dilemma?

Recently, Colorado passed some laws legalizing medical and recreational marijuana and we’re still figuring out, as a state, what it all means to local trade and living. Whether you are “for it” or “against it”, it affects everyone in some way or another and as a business owner, I’ve had to make some decisions myself.

Dispensaries in the metro area have popped up all over and, as businesses themselves, they are looking to market their shops and goods. This means that I’m getting calls asking whether I will do business with them to digitize their logos and help them find embroiderers.

You see, some embroidery companies refuse to do embroidery for or do business with, anyone selling marijuana, running dispensaries and/or paraphernalia shops, much like some of the banks and loans in town. Since they didn’t vote for the law and don’t agree with it, they turn those potential customers away even if it means losing a job. This is, of course, their prerogative… it IS their business.

For me, I’ve made my decision. (Just so you know, I’ve never smoked pot and I certainly didn’t vote for this law.) My business is embroidery, nothing more, nothing less. 95% of my jobs are corporate logos and I’ve very good at what I do. This issue has nothing to do with my feelings about the marijuana industry. I sell embroidery designs to customers that own businesses….period.

I’ve done designs for churches I wasn’t affiliated with, restaurants I haven’t (or wouldn’t) eat at, and political logos for people running for different offices on both sides. To me, refusing to digitize a customer’s logo because it’s for a pot dispensary is as stupid as refusing to digitize a logo for a bar because people shouldn’t drink. After all, they are both legal. For my business, that’s where the line is. You have to make the decision for yourself.

As far as embroidery, will you turn down a biker group because you don’t like them? A bar with a logo of a half naked woman? How about a meat packing plant because you’re a vegetarian?

It’s not my job to pass moral judgment. I do embroidery. That’s my job.

What do you think about this issue? Have you turned down jobs because of your beliefs?

Embroidery Digitizing - Educating the Customer

A few months ago, a promotional sales customer of mine (We’ll call her Sally) sent over a design to digitize for her customer for an event they were having. If you’re in the industry, you know the minute they say the word “event”, you have a rock solid deadline.

Artwork was sent over and discussed and digitizing began since we had limited time.  The design involved a main event logo and two sponsor logos and pricing had been quoted for such.

We had less than a week to complete the digitizing, get approval, send the stitch file to the embroiderer and complete the production. The problem was, Sally’s customer kept changing the design; major graphic changes. Every time the design was completed, it was sent for approval and came back with new art and changes. Sometimes there would be two or three in a day. On the third day there was another issue with one of the sponsors and they had been replaced so we had to add another design into the fray. Each time a change was made, the stitch count would go up (of course) and consequently the price of not only the digitizing but the production estimate the embroiderer had given them….and the clock was ticking!

Now, we were happy to make the changes but the customer was unhappy that editing fees were incurred and the embroiderer no longer wanted to stick with the quote they had given them for production…..understandable.  Sally just said, “Hey, that’s what they said they wanted.” But she never took the time in the beginning to explain the process and that changing the original art causes delays and editing fees. She didn’t even ask if this was the final art before starting the digitizing. Sally’s customer just figured they’d pay for whatever final design they ended up with and they expected the embroiderer to stick with the quote they were given regardless of the changes and final stitch count.

Had Sally explained the process to her customer better, we could have avoided the confusion, had no surprises and actually been more efficient getting her customer what they wanted. Things worked out in the end, we comped some edits and Sally paid for some also. We also worked to get the stitch count down on the design as much as possible so the production wasn’t too high and working with the embroiderer, we hit their event date. The customer was thrilled with their shirts.  All was successful.

It’s our job as professionals to make the customer happy and we do it every day.  But communication is essential to making things go smoothly.  Spend some time educating your customer about the process so they’re not surprised by the costs of their embroidery. If they’re still in the planning stages, explain to them that making major graphic changes to the design after digitizing only makes their costs go up. Changes they are making to the art need to happen at the graphic stage before digitizing.

After all, if you educate your customer, their order goes smoother, they understand what to expect and they’ll likely return because you made it work!

Of course, sometimes these things happen and can’t be helped. This is why a relationship with a good digitizing firm makes all the difference. Someone who is readily available to you and can roll with the changes so you can still meet your deadline.  NeedleUp Digitizing is that company.

It should also be noted that like most good digitizers, NeedleUp includes small edits and changes in the design process. Things like trims, color breaks, small text & coding changes and adjustments for sew-ability are all part of getting the customer a design they will love.

Embroidery Digitizing - The Learning Curve

Think back.  You’re at the embroidery show or in the sales office looking at purchasing your first embroidery machine and software.  You’ve done your homework on the internet checking different software capabilities and machine options.  The sales person is telling you how profitable and easy the embroidery business is and you’re nervous because this is a lot of money and you don’t know much about the industry. Even if you have some experience with the embroidery (in one way or another) you have no idea how to digitize a design.  Sales people will tell you that you can learn as you go, but in the meantime, the easy stuff can be auto-digitized in the software and if you come across something more difficult, there are many places you can send the design out to and get it digitized.

Any of this sounding familiar? Yea, I thought so.  I’ve been there. Not as the sales person or the customer but standing behind you at the show/in the showroom listening to what the sales people are telling potential customers. They don’t want to tell you anything overwhelming and scare you away so they say that it’s a simple thing of taking the art, running it through the software to create a stitch file, loading it into the machine, hooping the garment and selecting the thread colors. Then hit a few buttons and you’re literally “in business”!   I realize they are just doing their job but I’m going to tell you the truth.

The learning curve for running a successful embroidery business is substantial. The learning curve for understanding the process of purchasing quality digitizing is big. The learning curve for mastering digitizing yourself is huge! This is why most embroidery companies purchase their digitizing or hire a digitizer on staff. You have to be pretty big to have an on staff, full time digitizer, so today I’m just going to talk about purchasing your designs.

 Yes, there is a learning curve to purchasing your custom embroidery designs:  Your objective is to get the best quality at the most cost effective price in order to maximize your profit margin. Does that mean, just getting the digitizing as cheap as possible?  The short answer is “NO”.

Whatever your reason for getting into the embroidery business is, you must provide your customers with consistent service and quality they will come back for or, quite simply, they won’t come back, and you won’t have a profit margin to worry about.

Remember, you’re going to pass the digitizing cost along to your customer so this is not a production cost to you. However, if you’re simply buying your digitizing based on the lowest price, you’ll find there ARE hidden costs to you associated with this practice that will compromise your quality and service to your customers. Those include:

1.       Delivery time problems - when you have to have the design either redone or reedited multiple times to get it right pushing your job finish time back

2.       More fees later - Paying another digitizer to fix the design so it’s usable or companies that a-la-carte you to death on edits and second version sizes.

3.       Poor production times – the machine doesn’t sew the jobs efficiently due to poor pathing, unneeded color breaks and trims on the digitizing, driving up production time so much that it actually costs you money to do the job (see also #1)

4.       Customer satisfaction – No matter the machine, if the digitizing isn’t quality, you can’t turn out quality designs you’re proud to put your company’s name on. If you can’t get the job to them when promised, they will lose faith in your abilities. You’re trying to build and retain customers; do you really want to take chances with crummy, slow results?

5.       Poor communication with the digitizer – If you cannot talk to a live person about your design (or communicate with them because of a language barrier or time difference) it’s a waste of your time. I’ve been doing this a very long time, and when the design elements require adjusting for “sew-ability” or your customer requests changes to a design (and this happens all the time), you need to be able to discuss this with the person doing the punching. You can’t do that with a website.

6.       Inconsistent quality – Low/Cut rate digitizing companies have many digitizers on staff. It’s a draw which one will be given your design to work on each time and you can’t speak to them directly so one time the design may be OK and the next horrible. They may be using auto-digitizing softwares that don’t work well, inexperienced digitizers and many times they don’t even sew out the designs they’re creating before sending them on to you. (Caveat: Just because a company says they’ve been in business, digitizing for 20 yrs, does NOT mean that the actual person doing your work has been digitizing for that long).  You DO get what you pay for!
 

I cannot stress enough how important it is to build a relationship with a reputable digitizer who you can talk to directly. One that you can trust to give you reasonable pricing, consistent quality from years of experience, and someone who understands production, pathing and the need to sew out every design for quality before sending it to you.  You need a digitizer who offers personal attention and makes you look good with every job you do for your customers.
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NeedleUp Digitizing is owned and operated by Donna Lehmann, a 20yr veteran of the embroidery/digitizing industry. She can be reached at www.NeedleUp.com, donna@needleup.com or  303-287-6633 for DIGITIZING, consultation and classes M-F.

Embroidery Digitizing - Let’s Talk Lettering – Part II

In Part I of Let’s Talk Lettering, we talked about keyboard lettering, when we use it and some of its limitations. In part II we’re discussing how we charge and talking about text with your customers.

Charging for Lettering Jobs:

Many shops charge per name when doing a list of personalizations such as right chest names or even name drops into stock designs or under company logos.  Some may even charge per letter. The major softwares have a “team name” function built in to make the long lists of names and the application of doing these one at a time, go smoother and faster. This is when you’ll use your keyboard text most.

However you decide to charge for your services, take into consideration the time it takes to hoop each shirt individually for the names in addition to the application of any design on the opposite side, since this is a separate hooping.  Even if you’re using the “team name” function under a logo, you will have to stop the machine once the design is finished to load the individual names. If you have a long list of names, it can be time consuming so make sure you’re charging for your time.

If I am adding lettering or a tagline to a customer’s existing logo, usually I will just charge an edit fee, even if I’m digitizing the letters manually. If I can use keyboard lettering and it matches what the customer is asking for, I will use that and “clean” up the letters, adjusting them for fabric pull and usually tweaking the corners and joints.  Once you get into more than just a tagline or the whole logo is basically lettering or a design or icon is included, then I’m charging for a full logo by stitch count and almost always digitizing the lettering by hand.

As you get better at digitizing your lettering, you’ll find you use the keyboard text less because it’s easier and more time efficient to digitize the letters correctly from the start rather than edit keyboard text more.

For the customer’s benefit:

Convenience and organization dictates that you have a printed list of sample text in the fonts you offer customers in your shop.  Be familiar with your regular fonts and insure that they are the ones that sew well in every day practice.  There will be many fonts in your software and not all of them will be winners. Also be aware that the more fonts you offer, the longer it will take the customer to make a decision, so handing them a 3” thick binder of fonts, may not be what you want to do.  Displaying a list including 4-5 scripts, 4-5 blocks and 4-5 serifed font styles should be your basics. When a customer asks about other styles, you have a chance to talk to them and provide a more custom experience and more fonts to look at.

Be sure to also know approximately how many characters per inch you can sew in each font. The customer will appreciate your expertise and you’ll be able to quickly help them find a lettering style that will work for their job. An easy way to display your basic fonts is to sew them and frame them for the wall or counter. This way the customer can actually see the letters in thread.

For full logos, the lettering is usually a part of a customer’s company design and the lettering should look exactly like their logo. They’re paying for a custom job so if the keyboard font doesn’t look exactly like their art, and many times it won’t, don’t use it.

I get jobs sometimes that have very tiny lettering under them for a tagline (way under minimum standard) and the customer wants me to recreate the design at the same size. They’ll tell me they want the same lettering but make it look better. This is when educating the customer comes into play. You have to discuss the design with the customer and tell them why the lettering looks bad on their original. If the text is too small to sew well on their fabric, give them options like enlarging and stacking or moving the text to a better location.

Lettering is probably one of the biggest challenges to master that embroiderers’ face. There’s no match for practice and experience. Keep notes of what works, sizes and settings. It’s never a waste of time. Almost all company logos have lettering, unless you’re the owner of the “swish” or “the little man playing polo on a horse”. J

 

NeedleUp Digitizing LLC is owned and operated by Donna Lehmann, a 20yr veteran of the embroidery/digitizing industry. She can be reached at NeedleUp, donna@needleup.com or  303-287-6633 for digitizing, consultation and classes M-F

Embroidery Digitizing: Right Way VS Customers Way

We all know there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, however relative that may be, but what happens when a customer brings in a previously embroidered garment which frankly, was clearly digitized incorrectly?


This is fairly common and frequently the customer doesn’t realize and is unaware of how much better their logo could be. I’m speaking about aesthetics here since the customer is only seeing the final design, however, if the design is poor, the production quality will undoubtedly be bad also.

But, what if the customer loves the logo on the garment and wants it duplicated? What if they think it’s the “cat’s pajamas” and they just don’t have access to the stitch file?

Now is the time to discuss with the customer what they want, what you see and their expectations for the job. Find out what they like and don’t like about the original design so you can determine whether you’ll be able to make improvements they will love. Communicate with them about how you would do the design, pointing out things you might change if they seem open to them. Never criticize the original design out-right or the person who did the digitizing; it just makes you seem petty and unprofessional. I don’t comment to the quality unless they ask, point blank…then I’m honest but tactful, speaking more to how I can make it better and cleaner.

I try to avoid duplicating cruddy embroidery at all costs, but, if after all this, the customer is adamant that the design look exactly like the original, then you’re obligated to recreate the design exactly. Believe me, it’s a shot to the heart but it’s what the customer wants. Visually, you should strive to make the logo look the same, using the same stitch types and angles, but there are always improvements you can make to the way it paths and sews at the machine that will help in production.

The bottom line is, you’ve made your customer happy and next time, you won’t be duplicating someone else’s design, you’ll be digitizing their latest original!

************** Donna Lehmann ownes NeedleUp Digitizing LLC and has been commercially digitizing for 21 years. Donna also writes, teaches and consults about the industry and can be reached at NeedleUp 303-287-6633.

Copyrights: What’s the real deal? – Part I of II

Every digitizer and embroiderer faces this from time to time. Let’s talk about copyright. Do we or don’t we digitize or produce a design we know doesn’t belong to the person asking for it? The correct answer is “no”.

Webster’s defines copyright as: the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work).

Simply put, if your customer isn’t either the owner or a rep for the company or a promotional products rep slated to procure swag for them, the design they’re bringing you falls under copyright law and you shouldn’t be doing it. There are a few exceptions, but the bottom line is; if they don’t own the design, they have no right to use it and it is illegal for you to recreate it or produce it.

This comes up frequently with regard to sports teams, car and motorcycle manufacturers and cartoon characters, but is just as illegal with smaller logos of more unrecognizable designs. You can’t know every design out there but with access to the internet, you can sometimes search a logo graphically and find it. Know who you’re doing business with. Even if you unknowingly infringe and sew a design without authorization, you are every bit as liable as the person who asked you to reproduce it, should the copyright holder decide to make an issue of it legally.

In the industry, there’s a running joke about the “Disney Police”, but it’s no laughing matter. They exists in the form of whole divisions of corporations that do nothing other than to uphold the company’s copyrights and prosecute people, Disney and Harley Davidson being the ones that first come to mind.

As I said, there are some exceptions. Companies, franchisers and organizations like Girl/Boy Scout troops and car dealerships who sell particular makes have the right to use those logos however the company/organization stipulates that they must get their logoed items from them (the company) directly or through channels set up by them in order to insure the quality and integrity of their logos. The exception comes in if you get written permission from them to recreate/use the logo or get set up as a preferred vendor.

With professional sports teams, permission/licensing is applied and paid for and is very expensive and rigorous. The other thing you’ll run up against is car enthusiasts and collector clubs. Just because they are a Coca-Cola Collector Club or the Corvette Club (or own a corvette) doesn’t give them the right to use the logo.

Along with trademarked designs comes a thing called trade dress. Trade dress creates a visual impression which functions like a word trademark. Basically, a design doesn’t have to even have the name of the company on it to be covered by their copyright. That means, a picture of a Volkswagen Beetle is essentially the same as the Volkswagen logo for our purposes. This is why stock design companies have removed car designs from their offerings for the most part unless the car is so generic as not to be relatable to a specific make or model.

And one other thing, there’s a common misconception that if you change a logo or design by 10%, it is a new design and as such is no longer covered by the copyright. Not true. Don’t fall for it.

In Part II, we’ll discuss the copyrights of designs created legally.
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Information contained in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as professional legal advice. Companies mentioned in this article are used only as examples. Contact a copyright lawyer in your area for specific legal determinations and issues.

For more information about NeedleUp's digitizing services, please visit our website at www.needleup.com where you can view some of our most recent work and get pricing and more information on contacting us. Donna Lehmann is owner of NeedleUp Digitizing and she can be reached at 303-287-6633

Pathing and the Colorway to Success

Pathing is one of the most important elements to master in the process of digitizing. Quite simply, pathing means the order in which the design sews; what sews first and what sews second plus the progression of the design from first stitch to last. Efficient pathing is a design with the fewest trims possible and minimal color breaks. An optimal one color design would have only one trim which is at the end. This would mean that everything was planned or pathed so that all parts of the design were sewn without stopping. To do this, all stitches traveling between elements of the design are covered by the later parts of the stitching. The best way to start digitizing a logo, is to plan out the design in your head before you begin.

Along with pathing, color breaks go hand in hand. Generally, the design will need to be digitized from the background to the foreground so that elements of the design on top fall in front of parts that should be behind. The idea is to only visit each color of the design once if you can. (Some designs may require you to revisit colors later in the logo). A 3 color design that has 52 trims is a very poorly pathed design. Each trim is another possible thread break or pull out and slows the machine down. As an old boss of mine used to say, “We aren’t making money if the machine’s not running .”

The efficiency of an embroidery design is most apparent at the machine. If you are an embroiderer, it will be the first thing you notice and the first thing that will make you crazy if it’s not right. If the machine keeps stopping throughout an order making the job take longer, you may need to charge more for production. A poor design can make the job take 2 to 3 times longer.

If you’re a promotional products salesperson, the first thing that you’ll notice is how much hair your embroiderer is losing. This is where a quality digitizer breaks out front of the “cheap” pack. It’s great to pay only $25.00 for digitizing until your embroiderer has to charge you for editing and longer production times. Your embroiderer may even refuse to sew a design that’s really bad. If your embroiderer cringes every time you walk in the door, you may be using the wrong digitizer.

NeedleUp Digitizing is the “right digitizer”. We have the experience and knowledge to create consistently great designs that are beautiful and efficient at the machine making your run times minimal!

*****NeedleUp Digitizing is owned by Donna Lehmann. You can contact Donna by email: donna@needleup.com or call us at 303-287-6633 M-F. Visit our website for pictures of some of our recent work: www.needleup.com *****

But what does a digitizer actually do?

So you have a design you need for a customers job, and you email it over to the digitizer. A few days later, the stitch file shows up in your inbox. Like magic, right? But what really happens on the digitizers desk to make that happen?

If the design isn't already in digital form, it is scanned in to bring it up in the embroidery software. From this point, companies that use an auto-digitizing software open the file and run it through, giving it some basic parameters and let the software do it's thing.... problem is, this only does a decent job on very elementary designs and there's still a need to edit and work over the resulting design as this type of software feature is not all it's touted to be and if you don't understand the process and it's limitations, you turn out junk.

What I really wanted to tell you is how digitizing is done the right way. Once the logo is in the embroidery softwear, a plan is formulated to digitize the design using a path that includes the least number of trims and color breaks so that it sews efficiently and as quickly as possible. This is called pathing.

The design is then digitized (point by point) by hand, using this path and programming codes are added telling the embroidery machine when to trim, change colors and how much density to use. A number of other commands that relate to fabric and stitching quality, are also added to basically tell the machine what to do, where and when to drop the needle, and move the needle on a mathematical grid of stitching. (There's much, MUCH more, but this is the basic the gist of it)

All these things are the reason why it's important to tell the digitizer what type of fabric the design is intended for, what colors will be used and where and the type of garment(s) it will be applied to.

Once the design is complete, a good digitizer will sew the design out to insure it sews well and registers everywhere...meaning everything lines up correctly. Designs may need to be sewn out several times to insure they sew properly.

Most companies will send you a scan or digital of the design with the stitch file so you can see the logo right away. So into your inbox comes a picture of the completed design to look at and a file in a stitching format that you won't be able to open unless you have embroidery software. This goes to the machine to produce your garments.

With a clearer idea of what you're actually paying the digitizer to do, you can have a better understanding of what it takes to create professional embroidery designs and be able to ask intelligent questions when searching for the right digitizer for you.

When you're searching for professional digitizing, NeedleUp Digitizing would love to help you be successful! Visit our website: http://www.needleup.com for more information on our services and to contact us directly.

In Line with Multi-Placement Embroidery

Have you ever turned down embroidering a baseball jersey job because the split-front design terrified you? What about sewing your clients logo around the bottom of a tablecloth for their upcoming show? Afraid you wouldn't be able to get the designs straight and lined up, especially multiple times? With a few pointers, you don't have to fear this ever again and your customers will be impressed with your professional skills.

The most common case of multi-hoop placements are by far the split front jerseys and jackets. Since you can't sew across the placket (or zipper) you have to embroider the design in two halves.

If it helps you on the horizontal plane, you can use an "L" ruler to get your horizontal perfectly correct to your vertical placket and mark with a chalk or fabric marker on both sides of the garment. It's imperative that your digitizer can see the jersey you're embroidering so the measurements are exact. I like to make sure the design overlaps slightly where it meets to make it visually appealing.

You must also have alignment markers on your hoops. Some companies have markings molded into the hoop itself for this purpose but you can simply mark your own with a ruler and marking pen. In this way, you can align your hoop with the placket (or your chalk marks) to get the designs straight on both sides.

You will hoop the fabric sides seperately, using your marks, matching the hoop marks to the chalk marks. Then you will drop (or start) your needle at the alignment point the digitizer has set in the design.

Assuming your digitizer is talented enough to set up your multi placement design, (....and NeedleUp can help you with this of course) you will work with them to set an alignment point on your design halves. This point is the juxtaposition for the two sides in relation to each other;

If you are just doing a design repeated several times, like along a hem, the second design usually starts from a point on the last design for a seamless sew.

There's a way to line up most any design, you just need a bit of practice and nerve enough to try it....not to mention a digitizer who will work with you. If you decide to go there, gives us a call!

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NeedleUp Digitizing can be reached at 303-287-6633 M-F 8:30 - 4

Embroidery Digitizing - "Fixing" Designs

With the economy still “tender” and the industry trying to regroup this year, I’ve been getting more of what I call “fixer” designs. Stitch designs that came from somewhere else that have a production problem of some sort, and the customer wants me to fix the design so it’s usable because they don’t want to have the design redone. That’s when I get the call and they say “I can’t show this to my customer!”. Of course, they don’t have the wireframe master copy of the logo; only the stitch file and usually about half of the design has to be re-digitized anyway.

Then there are the customers that only send me the “more complicated stuff” that their cheap digitizer can’t seem to get right or know how to do at all. Sometimes they’ll have a very important client or account that they cannot afford to lose due to a low quality design job. They save money on the easy stuff with the cheap digitizer but when it’s more detailed or too difficult for them, or more important to get it right and fast, they come to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the business, but I always wonder if the customer really feels it was worth it to go through the whole process twice, only to end up paying just as much or more; plus doubling their turn time. Had they used a reputable digitizer the first time they would have been able to meet their deadline and cross the finish line with a quality design.

I know you want to be your customer’s hero, their embroidery guru. I can’t stress enough the importance of building a rapport with a professional digitizer…personally… not ordering a design from a faceless company on a website.

Besides the inconsistency problem of never having the same person work on your designs, you can’t speak to the person directly for instructions, or changes to the design. If there’s a problem or need to call, you’ll likely get a message taker who’ll tell somebody to tell somebody. In the case of overseas companies, you can’t even do this because it is night-time there during your business day and they speak little, if any, English.

Spend a bit of time searching out a digitizer that’s a good fit with you and your business. Once you start a relationship with that person, I promise you, there will be many little benefits along the way you never got from the others. A little loyalty goes a long way also. Let them know where you’re coming from and work with them to create great embroidery for your clients. After all, quality is what brings your customers back to you!