Looking for professional look that will get your organization noticed? Embroidering your logo on custom apparel provides numerous design options that can make for some unique and professional-looking products that your customers and staff will love.
Embroidery is a preferred decoration method on customized jackets, sweatshirts, golf shirts, and personalized caps. Embroidery has a perceived higher-value for its professional appearance, which is why it’s a favourite decoration type for corporate apparel and employee custom uniforms. Whether you’re looking for custom golf shirts for a tournament, sweatshirts for your school’s graduating class or jackets for a client gift, custom embroidery can make your logo stand out.
Here are the top 5 things to consider when selecting embroidery for your custom apparel.
Product Selection
Embroidery can be done on many types of apparel, from caps to jackets, polos, sweatshirts, backpacks, laptop bags and backpacks. While you certainly can embroider your logo on custom t-shirts, we recommend only embroidering on a heavyweight t-shirt as the fabric will need to be strong enough to hold when the needle is stitching through the shirt. T-shirts with a polyester mix or stretch in them is not preferred as any pull in the fabric will cause the logo to be disproportionate.
The quality of an embroidered product is often a reflection of the garment selected. As a general rule, the thicker the garment, the better quality the embroidery. Soft shell jackets, such as our Coal Harbour Everyday Soft Shell Jacket provide a thick, sturdy base to produce the best quality embroidery.
Lightweight garments like golf shirts are best suited for small logos on the chest or sleeve. Reducing the size of the logo on these lightweight garments prevents excessive puckering, which disrupts the look of your logo.
Professional Custom Apparel
Not only does embroidery have a perceived high-value appearance that can give your custom garments a professional look, embroidery is often a preferred decoration method for its endurance. While the colours on screen printed garments may fade over time, embroidered garments will keep their same great look and vibrant colours even after multiple washing. This is why embroidery is often the preferred decoration method of restaurants, hospitality and trades for their corporate uniforms as these garments are heavily washed.
Embroidery is also an ideal decoration option for clients with a multi-colour logo who don’t want to have to simplify the colours in their logo on a custom polo or sweatshirt. Because embroidered logos are charged by the stitch count and not by the number of colours, choosing custom embroidery allows you to have a multi-coloured logo without having to pay extra for each additional colour in your logo.
To read more about the difference between screen printing and embroidery, check out this blog post: https://www.entripy.com/blog/screen-printing-or-embroidering
Stitch Count Determines Price
The “stitch count” is a custom apparel term that simply means the number of stitches it will take to embroider your logo or design on a garment. There are two main things that affect the stitch count: the size of the logo and the detail in the logo. Generally, the larger the logo and the more detail it has, the higher the stitch count will be. All of Entripy’s online quotes are based on a stitch count of 15,000. Typically, this is the number of stitches required for left or right chest logos.
A full-back logo such as this 70,000 stitch design for our client Big Viking Games will require more stitches and will cost more than what is quoted on our website. A client experience representative will be in touch to help you determine the cost of your larger design.
Some Logos Require Simplification
Before they can be embroidered, designs go through a digitizing process. This is the process of changing your artwork into a digital file that the embroidery machine can read.
The digital file tells the embroidery machine exactly how many stitches are required to recreate your logo. Entripy does not charge a fee for digitizing your logo.
Some logos do require simplification in order to be embroidered. Certain digital effects like gradients, halftones or super fine detail are often the first items simplified in embroidery since the thread is not able to replicate that effect. This complex logo for Amanda’s Lemonade Stand had to be simplified in order to be embroidered. The small text was removed, shadows and gradients in the lemons were made solid and the cookie details were simplified.
Embroidered Garments That Last
The endurance of your embroidered garments will largely depend on the quality of the threads used. Entripy uses Isacord threads made with top quality trilobal polyester that has nearly twice the strength of rayon. Using high quality threads ensures that our embroidery will last the lifetime of the garment with little to no colour fading, withstanding industrial washing methods. Plus, our in-house embroidery and digitizing ensures that any unravelling is prevented.
Want to see behind the scenes of Entripy’s embroidery process?
Watch this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwDJRFcpWaY)
