Digitizing an Embroidery Design…..Sans Artwork

Customers come to me from time to time with a shirt from an old embroidery to digitize from. They either have lost the stitch file or can’t get the file from the previous embroiderer and their customer says they don’t have any art….so they’re giving us an old shirt. Now depending on the customer and the quality of the embroidery on the shirt, this could be a problem. Here’s why:

Remember, the customer doesn’t know how all this works. They just know they want more shirts and while they seem nonchalant about the design details at the beginning, rest assured they will closely scrutinize the design once you’ve done it. Save yourself some time, sweat and trouble by addressing the issues of the design before you begin.

The first thing I find out in this situation, is what they liked and disliked about the design on the garment….size, detail, colors, placement, everything. There’s no point in recreating the design exactly only to have them say they would like the font different or the shape of something changed. If they say they hated the whole thing (oh yes, it’s happened) press for artwork so you can start fresh.

You also should press for artwork if the shirt is distorted or warped in some way (like from multiple washings) and the design or lettering is crooked and puckered. It will take much more work to get everything straight without something straight to work from. Obviously, there had to be artwork somewhere, at some point, for the design to be done originally. Without artwork, the very fine details of the design are difficult to see and duplicate, especially from a poorly digitized design. 75% of the time, if you say you’re going to need artwork to move forward, they’ll magically be able to find it.

Conversely, I usually ask if the customer has had their logo digitized before. I’ve digitized designs from artwork only to have the customer tell me that it doesn’t look like the shirts they had previously done. Turns out the last design was either done from different artwork or was altered for the embroidery process in some way. Since I can’t recreate a design I haven’t seen, we have to start fresh, which wastes time and money.

Once you know what the customer really wants the final result to be, you can work accordingly, correcting your design to change the things they hated and recreating what they liked about it.

Customers still think what we do is somehow magical or that art gets fed into the computer and just squirts out a design on the other side. {Those are the $25 flat rate people :)} They don’t realize the technical knowledge it takes to program quality embroidery designs. It’s your job to guide them through the process and make sure they get what they want. Our job is to be in your corner and provide you with professional digitizing! Contact NeedleUp when you need stellar embroidery designs that enhance your efficiency.

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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.