Embroidery

How much does it cost? Beats me. There are so many factors involved in pricing embroidery we can't really publish a pricing guide. We could, but it wouldn't mean anything to you because one of the factors in pricing is stitch count, and unless you're an embroidery savant or have years of experience in the industry you probably can't begin to guess at the stitch count.

Ok, so what are the other pricing factors? To give an accurate quote we have to know several things. We have to know the complexity of the design, the size of the design, what the design is going on, and how many items you want. We also need to know if there will be any special techniques used such as applique.

Why does complexity matter? I'm glad you asked. Embroidery is as much an art as a manufacturing procedure. Designs must be "digitized" before use. In other words they have to be converted with a system that tells the machine where to put stitches, how long the stitches should be, how to compensate for the push and pull of the fabric, etc. This is not an automated process. It requires the skills of a professional digitizer. The amount of time necessary to digitize the image affects the price.

So what do you charge for digitizing? That varies widely. Sometimes nothing. Simple designs, or designs that are primarily text we can sometimes digitize quickly enough that we waive the charge. For larger orders we sometimes will waive digitizing charges, or roll them into the per item price. If we digitize the design in-house the charge ranges from $0-$25. If it is a very large or very complex design we will sometimes outsource the digitizing to a company that does nothing but digitizing. In those cases the prices usually range from $30-100.

But my design is camera ready so it doesn't need to be digitized right? Sorry, no dice. Pretty as Photoshop, Illustrator, Draw, or other formats might be, they aren't embroidery stitch files. If you have a digitized design from an embroiderer or digitizer (in an industry standard format), we can often work from that, but "digital" and "digitized" aren't the same thing.

So if I give you this floppy disk from my last embroiderer, you can use it? Maybe. Probably. But we have to try it out. If it is in a format we can read (which is most commercial machine formats, preferably Tajima) then we can try to use it. But if it is poorly digitized you may be better off having us re-digitize it anyway. On particularly large runs it is especially important because poorly digitized designs not only don't look great, but they don't run well either. They can cause thread breaks and other problems that slow production. If you already have a digitized design we will do our best to use it, but we can't guarantee it.

So what's this applique process you keep talking about? Applique is a process by which we cut pieces of fabric (usually twill) and stitch them to a garment. Frequently other stitches are added for detail or highlight. If you've ever seen a high end baseball, football, or hockey jersey you probably get the idea. The number is cut, then sewn on around the edges. On athletic numbering this process is often referred to as tackle twill.

So other than athletic numbering, why would I want to use applique? Many reasons. On a big design with lots of broad areas of similar color this saves lots of stitches, which means lots of saved money. Also twill can be used to give more variety to the texture of a design. If you want an old fashioned collegiate look, this is the way to go too.

Back to Artwork for a minute. What format do you need the artwork in? For embroidery format isn't that important. Of course the higher quality the art, the easier it is for us to digitize, but we've worked from faxes before, and we've even worked from scans of other embroidered products. In very rare cases we'll have to recreate artwork if it is just too small. That may incur an art charge if the work is extensive.

Is there anything else I should know about the artwork requirements? Absolutely. There is a minimum size to embroidery. Trying to "print" a picture using thread is way different than spraying ink on a page or even on a shirt. In embroidery the smaller the detail (particularly lettering) the harder it is to make it look good. Don't expect the declaration of independence on the left chest of a polo shirt. Any lettering less than about 1/4" just isn't going to look as crisp as it could. Below about 1/5" it will start to become unreadable blobs of thread. Many logos have a large portion and then a little tag line underneath. People forget that when we shrink the big logo the tag line shrinks too. Often tag lines have to be modified to fit on two lines, stretched out, or eliminated altogether.

Is there a way to reduce the cost of my embroidery? Yes and No. Embroidery is mostly about stitch count. If there's elements to a design you don't need, leave them out. Areas of large fill can sometimes be left out if the shirt is the same color as the fill. Also, there are times of year when we are slower than others. If you have time to wait you can ask about a "fill-in" rate. This means that we'll hold your job until our business is slow, then we'll run it. It gives us something to do during the slow times, and it can result in significant savings to you. Keep in mind that we seldom have slow times from Oct-Dec or April-May, so those aren't great times to wait for a fill in job.

Can we provide our own blank goods. Within limits we allow it. We will not embroider heirloom items, very expensive customer supplied items, or customer supplied leather items. A small percentage of items get damaged in the embroidery process. Our rate is about 1 in every 100 items. If we have supplied the items we will gladly replace them at no charge if we damage them. We cannot, unfortunately, replace customer supplied items if they become damaged, so whenever possible we prefer to provide the blanks.

XYX123.com offers cheap embroidery. Will you match their prices? Sorry, no. There's something called the embroidery triangle. The three corners are speed, price, and quality. You can get any two of those corners to line up, but not all three. Many web sites sacrifice quality for speed and price. Our prices are exceedingly affordable and competitive, but we wont' sacrifice quality. If you want to save money you can use our fill-in rates (see two questions up), but other than that there is very little flexibility built in to our prices. We try to quote a fair price the first time.

Why are polar bears your favorite animal and why do you mention them on an embroidery web site? Polar Bears are massively strong, but only use that strength to feed or protect themselves. If not hungry they exhibit a live and let live kind of attitude. They bear no grudges, are immensely curious, and have a sense of smell that borders on a superpower. They can smell food for hundreds of miles. Every tribe of natives that lives in the arctic reveres polar bears. The Lapp indians call them "God's Dog" because they fear that if they use its real name it will anger the bear. And I mention them on the web site because I've been sitting here writing this web site for 3 days and I really wanted to talk about something other than business. So visit our links section and there is a link to a great organization that studies polar bears, and also to the NRDC which has a campaign going to help save the bears from the increasing threat of habitat loss.

E-mail: webquestion@convective.com