Things your Digitizer needs to know...

I get it.....what you may say? ....

You're in a hurry, under a deadline. You have sourcing to do to find
some chartreuse shirts that your customer wants along with some crazy
6-panel matching hats and you have to find, order, embroider and drop
ship for an event. The design needs to be digitized and approved before you can even start so you're sending it on to the digitizer so they can get started.....sound familiar? So just slap the design onto an email and send it.

So I get it....it's easier to just shoot the design over and let the digitizer figure it out, right?

Well, it may be easier at the point of *send* but if you're guilty of this, you're causing yourself problems on the backend which delay the process and can result in less than quality designs.

I know, I've been the recipient of many emails from customers that read, in their entirety: "Here's another design". I have to literally refrain from sending a reply that reads, "That's pretty!" (tongue in cheek).

Seriously, we cannot do our job properly unless we have all the information. It's not because we're nosy; there are reasons for every question we ask. At the very least, provide the basics: what color(s) will be used to sew the garments, what are the garments, fabric, and sizes needed. If the item is something like a sports bag, we'll need an embroiderable area size, not how wide the pocket is but hoop size and how much space we have once the hoop is in place to embroider.

And lastly, the art itself. Are the white areas in the background going to be filled with thread or open to the fabric? Are the colors on the art the same colors to be used for the embroidery?

If you don't know the answer to these questions, get with your customer first. Get into the habit of asking customers specific questions because they are inexperienced and have no idea what they need to tell you. If your customer is asking for their design to sew in royal and they just ordered royal shirts, you need to deal with it before you involve your digitizer.

Providing as much information as possible makes the process much smoother and all parties can be on the same page. In the end, your stitch file will get to you much faster and be digitized optimally for the job you're doing resulting in a far superior design application.