This is a question that I get very often. Should I digitize my own embroidery designs? Should I spend the money to learn how to digitize my own designs? Should I upgrade my embroidery Software so that I can digitize my own designs? If these questions are going through your mind also, then read the article here that I have written.
In today’s world of embroidery, it really does not pay you to sit at your computer and digitize your designs when you can have someone else do one for you for a very few dollars. You need to keep your embroidery machines running and the best way that you can do that is to outsource your designs and spend the time that you would be digitizing, running your machines.
Many designs can take you several hours to digitize as in the design to the right. This was a jacket back design with a lot of detail. The customer wanted to see it in full color and then decided it was too much and only wanted an outline.
At the end of the month, you will be able to complete many more jobs than if you digitized or set up all of your own designs. Your bottom line is what matters at the end of the month!
What To Look For In A Good Digitizer!
First of all, what is a good digitizer? A good digitizer is someone that will work with you and help to make you look good to your customer. A good digitizer will know the embroidery process and know what it takes to make your design look the best that it can on your particular type of fabric.
Make sure that your digitizer knows production so that you have as few trims and color changes as possible. Make sure that he or she sews out the designs before sending them to you. You need to see what that design looks like sewn out on fabric. This is a big problem with a lot of digitizers, especially with Graphic Artists. They get their software and think that since they can create any type of graphic art, they can digitize a design for embroidery. This is not always true. Many times, they don‚’t know anything about the sewing process and have no idea about push and pull compensation, underlay stitching or density, all very important factors in creating quality designs.
The best place to find a good digitizer is through the sales rep in your area that sold you your embroidery design software. He or she should be able to direct you to someone that will be the type of digitizer that you are looking for.
If you can find a digitizer that digitizes their designs using the same type of embroidery software that you are using, this is the best of both worlds. This makes it easier for you if there is need for a size change or some fabric setting changes. With the right tools and education, you can do this yourself.
Important Information To Tell Your Digitizer About Your Design
- The type of fabric the design is going to be sewn on
- The finished size of the design.
- How many color stops you want in the design and where. Many times you want to change a particular color if your garment color changes.
- If you will be using this design for any other type of application
- The format do you want the design to be finished in-Preferably your software native format such as .EMB or .PXF. You also want the .DST file. If you have the original file, you can take care of any edits that you may need.
- You will want to be able to increase or decrease the size of the design from the original size
- Let them know that they can make some modifications to the design to make it sew better such as increase the letter size or choose a different font style?
Should I digitize your own embroidery designs? I would say, you are better off learning how to become an expert at editing your designs. What you need is the capability to edit the designs in case you want to make some changes. Having great editing skills are very important. If you do not have great editing skills, this is where you need to concentrate your learning effort.
If you want to learn good editing skills, contact me and we can schedule some lessons! This will help you speed up production and be able to increase your quality at the same time.
Good Editing Skills Are A Must In Today’s World of people that do not want to wait! Join us for our Free Monthly Training.
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach