Hey, it’s Noni from Printful!
Embroidered apparel has been around for a while - probably because it has that classy,
personal touch that other fashion trends find hard to compete with.
And with the advances in machine embroidery technology, it takes significantly less time
and effort to scale the production of embroidered garments.
If you want to join the machine embroidery trend, you've found the right place.
In this video we'll go through everything you need to know about creating embroidery
designs for print on demand.
EMBROIDERY IS NOT PRINTING
The main thing to remember is that embroidery is not printing.
So it requires an entirely different approach to creating a successful design.
Gradients, drop shadows, distressed textures and shading aren't possible, and you can only
use solid colors and shapes in your designs.
Many store owners take one of their designs that worked well on a t-shirt, and they try
to transfer it to embroidery.
But depending on the design, it can be a big mistake.
When designing for embroidery, you can’t use photographic imagery and it’s best to
use vector-based design software or use the tools available in the Printful Mockup Generator.
Our design team uses Adobe Illustrator for creating embroidery designs, but you can use
any other vector-based design software, such as Inkscape, which is available for free.
STITCH TYPES
There's not just one way to embroider - your design might look very different depending
on the type of stitch you use!
At Printful, we offer two types of stitches - Satin stitch and Tatami fill.
These will be the ones used on your designs.
Our machines will also recognize Run stitch as a last resort.
This is used if the lettering is too small or the details are too thin to be embroidered
in a Satin or Tatami stitch.
Our graphic team decides on the types of stitches that'll be the best for each design during
the embroidery file digitization process.
We'll get into how digitization works later.
Ultimately the type of stitch used will depend on your graphic and how it follows our guidelines.
If you have any preferences for stitches, include them in the embroidery notes section
- we'll show you how to find it later in the video.
And with that, let’s have a look at the two types of embroidery we offer and things
you’ll want to be aware of when designing for each.
3D PUFF EMBROIDERY
Printful offers 3 embroidery styles: 3D Puff, Flat embroidery, or a combination of both.
3D puff uses a foam insert under the top stitch to raise the surface, giving it a pop-out
3D look.
Note that 3D puff and partial 3D puff are only available for hats.
3D puff, although great for larger design elements, is more limited in its thickness
and design complexity.
If you’re not sure of the thickness of your design elements, there’s a useful measuring
tool you can find here under the eyedropper tool if you use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
With it you can click and drag between two points of your design and you’ll see the
distance between them in this window.
Alternatively, a trick that our design team uses daily, is creating a shape like a circle
or a rectangle in the thickness you need.
For example, you could create a shape that is 0.07″ wide to use for spacing between
objects.
This can be a reference point for your design.
Because of the foam insert used, you have to make sure that all objects are at least
0.2″ and not more than 0.5″ in thickness.
Outside these limits, you won’t get good results.
And note that the smallest font size for 3D puff is 0.75″ in height.
Spacing is also very important.
The minimum spacing between 3D objects is 0.07″ - objects that are too close together
might get foam caught between them, so keep things spaced out to get a crisp clean finish.
FLAT EMBROIDERY
Flat embroidery is the style most often associated with embroidery and it can be done both on
hats and apparel.
Flat embroidery is great for finer detail.
Although, don’t go crazy, still try to keep things as simple as you can for best results.
Lines and strokes can be quite thin, but still, there are limits.
The minimum thickness of shapes you can use for flat embroidery is 0.05″, and the maximum
is 0.5″.
These limitations are for your design elements or lines that will be done with the regular,
satin embroidery stitch.
For example, in this design here, we have the design elements that will be done with
the regular satin stitch.
But this filling underneath is larger than 0.5″ so it will be done with a tatami stitch.
Now there are no thickness restrictions for this filling but that doesn’t mean you should
create designs with the whole background filled in.
Spacing-wise, flat embroidery isn't as restrictive as 3D puff.
For the best results, we’d recommend adjusting the spacing details to at least .05″ wide,
so that the gaps between your design elements would not close up as much.
Simple line designs also work well.
This one has a good thickness for flat embroidery and the spacing between all the shapes is
ideal.
Note that lines thinner than 0.05″ may be done as a run stitch.
Flat embroidery is also great for text, but again, you're limited in size.
Text can be no smaller than 0.3″ tall for upper case letters and 0.25″ tall for lower
case letters.
If you use our mockup generator text tools to create your text designs, the generator
will warn you if the text in your design is too small to be properly embroidered when
designing.
Remember that side logos for caps are limited to a maximum of 10 characters for each 2″
wide line.
Also, fonts with serifs, those little points or thin lines at the end of the letters don’t
embroider well when they’re small.
So try and shy away from them.
And lastly, note that for flat embroidery, small design elements such as stars are measured
the same way we measure text so it's best to keep them at least .25'' tall for a smooth
result.
PARTIAL 3D EMBROIDERY
For hats, you can combine both embroidery styles - 3D puff and flat embroidery.
This is called partial 3D embroidery.
That means that you upload one part of the design and select it to be embroidered in
3D puff and then you select the other part to be embroidered in flat embroidery.
For instance, this design could use flat embroidery for the fox and 3D puff for the text next
to it.
STITCH COUNT
Another thing to bear in mind is that there’s a maximum stitch count of 15 thousand for
all embroidery designs.
Stitch count is the number of stitches used for the embroidery design when in fulfillment.
The bigger the count, the more time-consuming the graphic is going to be for our machines,
so 15 thousands stitches is the maximum limit for all designs.
If your design covers a very large part of the embroidery area or is very detailed and
exceeds this maximum stitch count, our graphics team will have to contact you and look into
how to best revise your graphic.
STAY MINIMALISTIC
As I mentioned before, simple designs are easy to embroider and have a finished look
with nice, tight lines.
It’s best to avoid small, detailed designs, as those are difficult to embroider.
A minimalistic design can have a striking impact.
For example, a basic design with minimal details can look really good with a red thread against
a white cap.
When developing embroidery designs, you should also note that the number of thread colors
you use will impact the look of the hat.
We offer 15 different colors, but you’re limited to 6 thread colors per design for
all embroidery types.
If you choose to use multiple colors, make sure the details are large enough so they'll
be sewn the way you want.
For reference, here we have a nifty visual of our embroidery thread color selection.
Underneath each shade there’s a color code, which is the closest reference point to the
actual embroidery threads used in fulfillment.
So you can use this when creating the embroidery design and visualising the color outcome.
You can find the visual here, under the file guidelines tab for each product you want to
use.
Keep it simple and you'll never go wrong.
NEGATIVE SPACE DESIGNS
Negative space is the space around and between the embroidered details of the design.
It's mostly used to put emphasis on the space around the embroidered parts of the design
by forming an interesting or artistically relevant shape.
For example, this design has several negative space details, but they're too small for the
machine to properly recognize them.
A good alternative in this situation is to fill them in.
That way you don't have to worry about them disappearing and the finer details will be
kept clean and solid.
Just like text designs, whether you fill in the negative spaces or leave them be, the
details need to be at least .25″ tall.
Spaces smaller than .05″ may get filled in as a run stitch, and our graphics team
would advise you to get rid of them altogether
MOCKUP GENERATOR
As I mentioned before, you can use our Mockup Generator to create text embroidery designs
for your products, or you can upload your embroidery files, select the colors we offer,
and get the file ready to send over to us for review!
The great thing about the generator is that you can see the general idea of how your embroidered
product will look, not just as a vector design, but with a digitally created embroidery look.
The generator creates real embroidery mockups you can use on your store.
However, there are two things to note about the mockups that you'll get out of the embroidery
mockup generator.
First, we don't guarantee that the embroidered product will look exactly like it does in
the generator - for example, the threads might go in a different direction than 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, say some of the details
don't show up properly, a stitch runs over negative spaces in your design or other errors
- that's the first sign that you've made a mistake in designing.
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 too well in the generator,
the end result won't be great either.
If you run into this problem when designing and feel lost, you can always reach out to
our graphics team and use our Design services to adjust your design for embroidery.
If you've decided to use our Mockup generator for your designs, don't forget to check out
our tutorial on how to use the Mockup Generator, link in the description below.
FILE FORMATTING
When it comes to creating your designs outside the Printful Mockup Generator, we recommend
using our templates.
They will ensure your embroidery files are created in the correct size according to the
maximum design area.
You can find templates by going to our Product Catalog.
Choose the product and here, under the guidelines tab you can download the template folder.
You will also find all the available colors for embroidery with color codes for each on
this page.
Note that there’s a 6 thread color limit per design for all embroidery types.
When it comes to saving your design in a design app other than the Printful Mockup Generator,
make sure that the background is transparent.
When using our templates, remember to turn off the guidelines layer, check that all fonts
are converted to shapes or outlines and, as mentioned before, it’s best to save files
in vector formats such as .pdf., or .eps.
If you don’t have vector files, you can submit raster graphics in .PNG format, but
make sure that the resolution is at least 300 DPI.
DIGITIZATION
Another thing you need to know about machine embroidery is embroidery file digitization.
Before the embroidery process can begin, our graphic design team needs to convert your
file into a format that our embroidery machines can read.
They need to recognize things like stitch type, stitch density, and thread color.
When you submit your design to Printful as a vector file (preferably in .pdf or .eps
formats), our graphics team digitizes it for a one-time fee.
Also note that each style of embroidery requires a separate digitized file, as well as switching
from a smaller embroidery area, like on a hat, to a bigger one, like on a polo shirt
- and vice versa.
So if you submit one design for 3D puff on a hat and later want the same design for flat
embroidery on a shirt, you’ll have to digitize that too.
To get your hat embroidery files adjusted for shirt embroidery when making a new order
in your Printful store, choose the polo shirt, select the color and when choosing an embroidery
file, select the graphic you want to adjust.
This green symbol over here indicates that the digitization fee has been paid for hats
in 3D puff.
Click on the graphic and go through the process as usual.
And here in the order information, you’ll see the file adjustment fee.
Now once your graphic has been adjusted for apparel embroidery, in your file library you’ll
see that this file will have the apparel embroidery badge as well.
Or if you’re adding this shirt to your store through our product push generator, the steps
are the same.
The only difference is that you'll be charged for the adjustment after the first order for
your product rolls in.
Take note that since the embroidery areas differ between hats and apparel - the embroidery
area for a hat is a rectangle, but the embroidery area for a shirt is a square - during adjustment,
the graphic will be proportionately scaled to fit the shirt area.
In some cases, this might reduce the details to a size at which they no longer work.
If this happens, our graphics team will contact you to revise your graphic.
And that's it!
Now that you've learned everything you need to know about how to create the perfect embroidery
file, take a look at the products we offer and start designing!