February 24, 2008 – 7:57 pm
For all those who send high quality artwork with your order, this post is not for you. All others, please read this and feel our pain.
Garbage IN means Garbage OUT.
Our low prices assume that we are working with ONE (1) high quality artwork file that accurately describes what is to be digitized. Anything less means your order is delayed due to edits/revisions. This costs you and me time and money.
When we open up an new order, our Administrator has a checklist they go through before sending the order to our digitizing department. Here is that list:
- Check to make sure artwork file opens (not corrupt).
- If file format is Corel Draw, Illustrator AI, or Illustrator EPS make sure all the text in file has been converted to paths. (This makes sure your design looks like you expect when we don’t have the same fonts that you do).
- Make sure the artwork is CLEAR (Easy to see all shapes, lines, text, etc.)
- Make sure all instructions provided match what we see in the artwork file. (I want to chat more about this later. Digitizing is not the time to be combining 2 or more artwork or punch files!) Do the dimensions match the selected placement (chest, hat, visor, back, other), Has the “Scale To” option been selected? Have color changes been accurately described? A complete order form means fewer edit requests.
- Have all background fills been accounted for? This is where you type in the additional instructions field which objects should have a fill and possibly what type of fill stitch you would like.
- Make sure the colors described above match the artwork provided. (If there is ANY difference, there should be additional instructions telling us what to do.)
- Process Order (Start Digitizing)
I know that most customers who come into your shops do not have good artwork. Of course you are not going to turn down a paying customer because of bad artwork. You will send it to Edigitize and hope we can work miracles and produce something amazing.
Most times we do eventually get you a sew file that your customer likes, however the wasted time on edits eats into profits (yours & mine). 
So what can we do?
The answer is simple. Your customer needs better artwork. Edigitize provides Artwork Setup & Vectorizing services at very affordable rates (Usually just $25-$45) to produce a file that we CAN digitize from. This process only adds a day or two to the process. It is your job to let your customers know that. The same would be true if they wanted their logo on pens, or key chains. Digitizing for embroidery is no different.
Starting in March we are going to start turning down orders that do not have clear artwork to digitize from. Lets be prepared.
