It might seem obvious, but it isn’t.\u00a0 Be sure you let your programmer know which colors need to be stitched.\u00a0 This is especially important if there are large white areas in your design.\u00a0 Should these white areas be stitched or should they be left negative (fabric showing through) to help reduce overall stitch count..![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.qdigitizing.com\/blog\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif\" "\\"More...\\""){kind=spacer}
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2) What colors are in the design.<\/strong><\/p>\n If your programmer is going to sample your design for you and your intent is to use that sample to show your customer, make sure you let your programmer know what colors she should use when sampling your design.\u00a0 This will save you and her and you time (money!).<\/p>\n 3) How big the design needs to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n Size matters, period.\u00a0 It is critical to let your programmer the size you want your design to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n 4) What color(s) is the garment.<\/strong><\/p>\n Color of the garment affects what density a programmer might use for fills in a design.\u00a0 When laying a light fille (like white) on top of a deep, rich color like red, if slightly higher densities are not used the fill area can appear pink.\u00a0 This can be countered with more aggressive underlay, higher density on top stitching or both.<\/p>\n 5)\u00a0\u00a0 What fabric the garment is made of.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the second most important thing (after size) you need to let your programmer know.\u00a0 The type of fabric a design will sew on will significantly impact the final quality of your order.<\/p>\n 6) What format the image file needs to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n Creating and saving the design in the proper format is important\u00a0because of how your printer needs to manipulated the file or output the file.<\/p>\n 7)\u00a0 Are there color blends in the design.<\/strong><\/p>\n For the most part color blends or secondary colors necessary to create another don’t work well in embroidery. Since threads are solid they can’t be mixed to gradually transition from one color to another.\u00a0 Given enough space and an embroiders tolerance to multiple color changes blends can be “faked” but how well the blend is accepted is always at the subjective view of your end user.<\/p>\n 8) Will specialty threads be used?<\/strong><\/p>\n Specialty threads like metallic, neon, 60wt, 30wt and other require special techniques for optimum performance.\u00a0 If you know you will be using a specialty thread it is really important to let your digitizer know.<\/p>\n 9) What font(s) need to be in the design.<\/strong><\/p>\n The term FONT does not really apply to embroidery.\u00a0 For programmers, ALPHABETY or STOCK LETTERING is more accurate.\u00a0 Embroidery cannot duplicate the intricacies of many fonts.\u00a0 Because of these we (digitizers) program facsimile of these fonts and give them our own names.\u00a0 A software package might call one of their ALPHABETS Times New Roman but I can assure you, on close examination you will find it will\u00a0be at best, close.\u00a0 But Times\u00a0New Roman, nope, no way.<\/p>\n 10) Halftones and\/or solids.<\/strong><\/p>\n Similar to the issue with blends, halftones (images created by dot patterns) are not really possible with embroidery.\u00a0 If you have half tones in your design your programmer will need to ask you how you want her to deal with them.<\/p>\n The more information you can give your digitizer before they start, the quicker they can design what you need.\u00a0And this will greatly increase the odds that she will return your design free of flaws on the first pass.<\/p>\n Until next month…<\/p>\n