Requirements For A Good Digitizer

How do I find a good  digitizer for my embroidery designs  and what do they charge?

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.  A good digitizer will ask the following questions:

• What fabric is this design going to be sewn on?
• Will you be using this design for any other type of application?
• What format do you want the design to be finished in?
• Will you want to increase or decrease the size of the design from the original size?
• Can I make some modifications to the design to make it sew better such as increase the letter size or choose a different font style?

There can be many other questions, depending on the design and the information that you have given them. When you are looking for a good digitizer, look for one that uses the same software that you do and request that you have a copy of the outline file.  This will allow you to make changes such as resizing or removing lettering from the digitized file.  You may have to pay a little more for this privilege, but it is well worth it.

Digitizer must know embroidery production

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.  This is a 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.  This is far from the truth.  They don’t usually know anything about the sewing process and have no idea about push and pull comps, underlay or density.

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.

Most good digitizers charge from $9.00 to $20.00 per thousand stitches.  Sometimes they charge by how long it takes and sometimes it is by how complicated the design is.  There are even good digitizers that will give you a choice and will create designs based on a scale.  If you want a lot of detail it will cost you more than if you want less detail.  If you want color blending this is an additional charge on top of the stitch count.  If you find someone that is charging less, then you had better try them out on a design that is for a customer that would not complain if it is not the kind of quality that you envision.  If the price is low, I would truly beware.

This brings me to the subject of going over seas for your designs.  Yes, their designs are very inexpensive; but can you communicate with this person or is it a company that employs a lot of digitizers?  You have no control over who you are going to get.  Sometimes the designs are OK and sometimes they are horrible and you cannot specify who you want to digitize your design.

This can also be true in this country if you are dealing with a large company.  They will send your design to the next person that is available. Sometimes they even contract them out to other companies and maybe overseas.   This is even worse.

Digitizer must sew out designs

Make sure that your digitizer sews out the designs before sending them to you.  Many digitizers with such a low fee do not sew out the designs before sending them to you.  Many of this type do not even own an embroidery machine.  If you have a design that you have purchased for a low price and it has a lot of issues in it, it will cost you money in the end.  It will drive up your production time so far that it will cost you money to do the job.

You want to make sure that you are working with someone that will give you a trouble free design and you can make money on their work.  This is truly one area that you do not want to skimp on in your embroidery business!  This is one area where you get what you pay for. Don’t forget you are going to charge the customer for the digitizing fee.  This is not a charge that you absorb in any way shape or form!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

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Part 3,  the final session of our Design Creation webinars using your existing embroidery fonts and shapes, will be next Tuesday night May 26 at 8pm.  During this webinar I will be working on a college logo using a true type font and we will be doing some review from the previous 2 sessions of this same series of webinars.

I started this design during session 2 in April but the lettering is very small and takes a lot editing.  Learning how to edit is extremely important and is a learned skill that does take a little time to master.  Once you have a good concept of editing and have really developed good editing skills, it is easy to transition into actual digitizing.

We are also going to be going over some details about how to create  your settings for this small lettering to make it sew out beautifully on any type of fabric.  Working with small lettering is always tough when you are new to embroidery and creating it to sew out great takes a lot of practice and skill, but it  can be done very successfully when you know how to use the right tools.

There are many times when  you can do your own custom design setups and create those custom logos instead of having it done by your digitizer.  Should you charge what a digitizer would charge.  Yes, of course you should!  You are spending time creating a design and you should be paid for that time!  There are far too many embroiderers that think that their time is not worth what a digitizers time is worth.  You may not have the same skills that  your digitizer has, but you are still creating their design and you have every right to expect payment for this design creation.

All of the Embroidery Club members from Embroidery Tips and More will be receiving a link to sign up for the webinar on Friday May 22.  This webinar Free to all to Embroidery Tips and More Embroidery Club members.  Anyone that is not a member is still invited to join us for the webinar for a nominal fee.

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
Embroidery Webinar of the Month

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Learning how to apply Underlay Stitching to your embroidery designs is very important if you want to create high quality embroidery designs. I have created a embroidery video training program on a CD with the same information that I taught during my “Embroidery Webinar of the Month,” “Why Should I Use Underlay Stitching In My Embroidery Designs And Which Type Of Underlay Stitching Do I Use?”

On this Embroidery Training CD I teach you why it was so important to use Underlay Stitching, the different types of Underlay Stitching and how you can apply them to your basic knit fabrics and woven fabrics.

I also teach you how to take these same basic Underlay Stitching settings and apply them to your other fabrics and different situations. My simple method of teaching will make it easier for you to learn how to make your adjustments as you are creating or digitizing your embroidery designs and daily embroidery lettering setups.

During my webinar and on the video training CD I use the Tajima by Pulse DGML embroidery software but you can take these same settings and apply them to your own embroidery software no matter what brand or level you have.

Learning how to create the proper underlay stitching in your embroidery designs is critical if you want the type of embroidery designs that will make your embroidery business stand out above the crowd.

This embroidery training video program “Why Should I Use Underlay Stitching In My Embroidery Designs And  Which Type Of Underlay Stitching Do I Use?” is now available to you on a CD.

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