Hi there!
Noni from Printful here!
Let’s look at how our embroidery mockup generator works!
There are two types of files you can create with the embroidery mockup generator - product
photos for your store and well-formatted embroidery files for your embroidered hats or apparel.
You can use these files when adding products to your store.
Note that we have two generators - the mockup generator and the product push generator.
When adding products to your store, you use the product push generator.
You can access it by clicking “Add product” on your store’s page on Printful.
The process of creating the designs on the product push generator is exactly the same
as it is in the mockup generator.
But the embroidery files that you create with the mockup generator can also be used when
adding products to your store.
This way, you don’t have to create your designs twice.
Before we start creating our design, there are a few things you should know about creating
embroidery designs.
The main thing to remember is that embroidery is not printing, so gradients, drop shadows,
distressed textures, and shading are not possible, you can only use solid colors and shapes in
your designs.
This means you can’t use photographic imagery for your embroidery designs and you're limited
to a 6 thread color limit per design.
If you're just starting up with embroidery designs or want to learn more details about
the process, take a look at our embroidery guidelines video.
It goes into detail about the do's and don'ts of embroidery and how to correctly format
your graphics for each embroidery style we offer.
There's a link to it in the description below.
Make sure you watch it before you start creating your own designs.
Now let’s jump into creating an embroidery design with the Printful Mockup Generator.
HAT EMBROIDERY DESIGN
To get started, go to our Mockup Generator.
From the list here, choose a hat you want to design on.
I’ll choose this one for the example.
Here you can select the color or multiple colors you want the hat to be in.
Next up, you can create your design.
You can either upload your own pre-created embroidery file or use our text tool to create
a text-based design right here in the generator.
Here you can see that for this hat you have the option to add a front, back, and also
side embroidery design.
Let’s add a front design, so hit “choose file” and now you have the option to upload
your pre-created embroidery file.
Or if you go to the ‘Sample files’ tab here - you can choose a graphic from a selection
of our free sample designs.
These designs are created by our in-house designers and you can add them to your store
if you want.
Now let’s say I want to upload my own graphic as the front design, so I go to ‘My files’
and upload the file.
Note that if you’re uploading your own design, it’s important that you’ve created it
with our embroidery guidelines in mind, because there are color and size limitations you need
to take into account for each embroidery style.
When you've uploaded the design, you can reposition and resize your graphic inside the embroidery
area here.
Here you can follow along your design quality information - it’ll warn you, if the file
size is too small and you should upload a graphic in higher resolution.
My design here is formatted as a single file, but if you want to add multiple elements to
your design - just hit “Choose new file.”
Next up, choose the embroidery style you want the design to be in.
You can choose flat embroidery, 3D puff embroidery or combine both with partial 3D puff.
This means that some parts of your design will be done in 3D puff and others - in flat
embroidery.
For this design, we’ll choose flat embroidery.
An important aspect to consider when creating your graphics is the color choice - there’s
a 6 thread color limit per design for all embroidery types.
As you can see, the design we have here has 4 colors.
That fits within the range of maximum thread colors.
Note that the generator recognizes all colors you have in your design and matches them to
the colors you select here.
For example, we have white for the logo text, then blue, orange and yellow for the triangles.
But the best way to guarantee that your colors will match, is to create your design with
the exact colors we offer in mind.
You can find all of them on the embroidery guidelines page for each product.
You also have the option to create a text-based design right here in our generator.
To create a design, click “Add text” here.
Type in the text you want to embroider.
If your text is more than one line, you can align your text here.
Next up, you can choose from a selection of fonts here.
Pick the thread color and adjust the text size, spacing or line-height.
You can also resize or reposition your text here.
Note that there’s a maximum of 2 text layers you can add for each design.
To add another layer, go back to see all design layers and click “Add text” here.
Then make sure your text layers don’t overlap or go outside the embroidery area.
The generator will also warn you if the text in your design is too small to be properly
embroidered.
You can also combine your uploaded designs with text.
For example, I want to add one of our sample graphics to this text design.
So let’s choose the file.
As I mentioned before, you can combine flat and 3D puff embroidery designs.
Text designs created within the generator can only be done in flat embroidery, so I’ll
leave it as it is.
But for this sample design, I'll choose 3D puff.
Then make sure you’ve selected all the thread colors you want for this design.
For this hat style, you also have the option to add back and side embroidery.
These designs can only be done in flat embroidery.
Now once you’re done with your design, click “Generate files” here.
Here you can choose what type of mockups and embroidery files you want to generate.
Once you’re done with your selections, hit “Generate Files” again.
Now you can download your files or save them in your store library for easy access when
adding products to your store.
APPAREL EMBROIDERY DESIGN
You can also add embroidery on apparel products like t-shirts, polo shirts, hoodies and more.
So let’s look at creating an embroidered t-shirt.
So in our mockup generator let’s choose men’s t-shirts and select the Bella Canvas
3001 shirt.
Choose “Embroidery” as the technique here.
Select the color you want for the shirt.
Then, you can choose to put your embroidery design on the left or center chest over here.
Similarly to hats, you can either upload a design or create a text-based graphic right
in the generator.
Remember that apparel embroidery can only be done in flat embroidery style.
Once you’re done with your design, you can generate mockups for this shirt as well as
your embroidery file.
DIGITIZATION
If you want to use the files created in our mockup generator to order your designs or
push them to your store, another thing you need to remember is how digitization works.
Before the embroidery process can begin, our graphics team needs to convert your file into
a format that our embroidery machines can read.
This process is called embroidery digitization.
There are two things to note about the mockups you'll get out of the embroidery mockup generator
and the embroidery on your products that will be created according to the digitized embroidery
file.
First, we don't guarantee that the embroidered product will look exactly the way it does
in the generator - for example, the threads might go in a different direction than it
is shown in the generator.
It's always best to order a sample product to see if the design looks exactly how you
want it to.
Second, if the mockup generator is showing a design that looks off, like some of the
details don't properly show up, a stitch runs over negative spaces in your designs or there
are other errors - that's the first signal indicating that you've made a mistake in your
design.
Whether your details or spaces between objects are too small or there are some other issues
with the design - you can be sure that, if the design doesn't look the way you want it
to in the generator, the end result won't be great either.
To avoid that, make sure to check out our embroidery guidelines video to learn more
about embroidery digitization and other design tips to keep in mind.
The link to that video is in the description below.
Remember to go through our embroidery resources BEFORE creating your products - watch this
video as well as check out the guidelines for each of the products you want to create.
You can find them on our Product Catalog by choosing the ‘guidelines’ tab under each
product.
I hope this video helped you understand how our embroidery generator works and will make
creating your embroidered products easier.
As I mentioned before, we went through the steps in our mockup generator, but the layout
is the same when adding embroidery products to your store with our product push generator.
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven’t already and click
the bell icon to get notifications when we upload new videos!