Embroidery is the decoration whereby coloured threads are woven through a fabric in a pattern by a machine. Embroidery is a great way to get a classy looking logo onto a garment or textile product for a low cost. It looks much nicer than screen printing and a multicolour logo can be produced for a lower cost than a multicolour screen print.

The cost of embroidery is dependant on the number of stitches, with your average logo taking 4,000 - 5,000 stitches. Large embroideries, as found on the back of jackets can consist of upwards of 50,000 stitches and can cost almost as much as the jacket itself.

The maximum number of colours that can be embroidered in a logo is about 12 but this depends on the machinery being used. If your artwork is going to consist of more than 8 colours, it's best to let your consultant know in the beginning.

Embroidery is commonly reinforced with a stabilizer called 'backing'. This material is most commonly white but other colours are available on request. Backing is put in place to ensure the embroidery remains flat and even without twisting during it's lifetime of wear. Without backing, larger logos will pucker and not sit nicely when worn. Products like hats or bags use a lighter grade of tear-away backing so any excess can be easily removed.

It's important to bear in mind when preparing artwork for embroidery that the minimum recommended text height is 6mm. It is possible to go slightly smaller on stiffer fabrics but not recommended.

The process of getting a logo from an image to a file suitable or uploading into an embroidery machine is called digitizing. Each of the threads is carefully placed by the embroiderer to ensure maximum clarity with a minimum of thread breaks or warping. This process can take upwards of an hour and is charged to the client whenever a logo is first embroidered, although this charge is waived if at least 50 products are being embroidered. If a logo is embroidered again in the future, setup is not charged again.

It's helpful to remember that when embroidering things like names or project titles, that there is no setup for embroidering text as basic fonts are available in a pre-digitized format.