WHY CAN’T WE ENSURE BEST QUALITY ON CUSTOMER PROVIDED DIGITIZING?
Most people in this business believe a digitized logo is a digitized logo, but in reality digitizers are like artists. Digitizing requires the skill of knowing what the embroidery machine will do based on: fabric, logo, stitch direction, under stitching, threads, etc. Quality is NOT solely in the hands of the embroidery vendor. Starting with poor quality digitizing, you cannot create good embroidery.
In the hands of an experienced digitizer, they want to see and feel the garment before determining how to digitize the logo. Two major lists for concerns are the garment and the logo.
The Garment
1. What material is it
- Solvy
- Puckering
- Needle deflection
- Stretching
- Perforation
- Bleeding after washing
- Strength to hold stitches POLY OR RAYON
- For Hats: Low profile, Constructed vs. Unconstructed, Size (yes size), Stiff or Thick buckram
- What sizes and genders are we sewing
- What seams, pockets, etc. will interfere with hooping or sewing
- What color? Yes, what color!
The Logo
- Size
- How many colors
- How many trims
- Density
- Underlay
- Size of satin stitches
- Outline thickness
- Satin stitch or Run stitch
- Color sequence: Sequence of what part of logo sews first, second, third, and so on.
- Design difficulty - this is NOT printing!!
- Start point/finish point
- Going on hat or flat
These are all important factors. In reality, digitizing should be created for the specific garment used. However, to be cost efficient, most distributors choose to use the same digitized file on flats and hats. Using the same file can create issues when the design is being run on the machines. Fortunately, with experienced machine operators and quality machines, the issue can be overcome to some degree.
Can we use the same digitize file on knit hats that we use on windbreakers? This is not suggested as wind breakers pucker more and require fewer stitches to keep the design flat; while the thick materials require extra underlay stitching to keep the fabric down. Using our own digitizing allows us to edit the digitized file and adjust things, such as understitching, to work better on different materials. In many cases, provided digitized files limit our options to do edits.
Poor quality digitizing can create higher reject rates thus increasing production time, which is why Thread Branders strongly suggests using our digitizing to insure your order is produced with the quality you expect.
