Image Files

We can take an image of your logo as the basis for an embroidery design.
This can be in any of the standard graphics formats: gif, jpg, eps, bmp, etc.
Most drawing applications can save in one or other of these formats.
We will resize the image as necessary.

Please contact us if you have any queries.

Turning Graphics Into Embroidery

Turning an image into an embroidery design is not a mechanical process.
Appropriate embroidery elements (lines, shapes) have to be traced manually over the image, and linked together in sequence.

This means that, for our purposes, a good logo can be built up from
clearly delimited lines and shapes, each in a specific colour.

It’s difficult to reproduce:

• sketchy images, made up of small strokes
   
• Lettering that is outlined in colour (unless the lettering is very large, a linear stitch can’t fit tightly enough to the body of the letters)
   
• continuously graduated colour or shading
  (e.g. red blending into orange blending into yellow)
   
• many small dots of colour.

Solid backgrounds over a substantial area (over say 6 x 6 cm) are not a good
idea, especially for inner garments, as they tend to form a rigid area. It is generally better to let the garment fabric form the background, between the embroidered elements.

On the other hand, thin lines tend to disappear into thick pile fabric such as fleeces. Lines need to be at least 3mm wide.

The number of colours is not an issue -- you could have up to 15, but will typically have a lot fewer. Two or three colours work well. For example, this is a logo we liked:

It represents what the business is about (plant trials - e.g. lettuces), has an interesting colour combination that works on both light and dark backgrounds, and has clear lettering (the “Ltd” was dropped to make the name bigger -- see next section).

Lettering

For lettering, people often choose a standard PC font
-- e.g. Lucida Calligraphy.
However, while we have standard lettering styles, there are far fewer than there are PC fonts. Lettering in any other style has to be hand-designed -- which is OK in moderation. If in doubt, pick a standard serif or sans font in plain or italic.

On letterheads and such like, a business name typically has “Ltd” or “Plc” for legal reasons. However, on workwear this isn’t necessary and loses valuable space which can be used by the name itself -- which is what matters, after all.

Some logos have strap-lines, often quite long, such as “The Fastest Plumbers in the West of England”. These often don’t fit in the area available for a standard left-chest logo, at a feasible lettering size (see next section). These either need to be dropped, or put elsewhere on the garment (such as back or sleeve).

Don’t include too much information: we’ve seen Name + full address with postcode + telephone number! In practice, people are going to remember only (a) the business name, and possibly (b) a memorable phone number. These days if you type a business name into Google, the relevant website should be in first position (otherwise something’s wrong...). People can then find out addresses and phone numbers from there.

Size

The embroidered size of a logo needs to be kept in mind.

For left-chest embroidery, the maximum working area is about 11 x 11 cm;
for caps, about 15 x 6 cm.

It is important that when a logo is scaled to fit such areas, the smaller elements do not become too small. In particular, the smallest size of lettering for embroidery is about 6 mm tall -- equivalent to lowercase in 32 point, or uppercase in 24 point. This is obviously much bigger than the smallest printable lettering.

The general rule for embroidery is: Big and Bold is Best.

Your Approval

The guidelines above mean that logos designed originally for print (or screen) might therefore need some adaptation, in order to look good as embroidery.

Our design software can generate realistic images (jpg format).
These drafts will be emailed to you for your approval, and possible revision by us, before production.

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