You scan your fingers down the list of embroiderers in the yellow pages, or you find your favorite search engine and type in "embroidery", or you drive down the main street of your city, village or town and see a sign for "custom embroidery".  Must be all the same, right?  There's no mystery to clothing embellishment, there's really no industry standards to worry about, it is just a person running a piece of equipment, putting thread in fabric, sewing out a logo.

Well, you would be partially right.  There is no mystery and there are no real industry standards ... but it is more than just a person running a piece of equipment.  Embroidery is art.  Embroidery is art, even when the same logo is sewn on a thousand shirts.  If the design is not digitized properly, the design will look bad, just plain awful. 

Ask questions when  you want a polo, a sportsbag, a jacket, a cap or any of the myriad of items that can be embroidered.  Words such as "underlay" (stitches laid down before the part that shows is sewn), "pull compensation" (will the letters be thick enough to look good or will they be real thin), "stitch density" (the higher density, the better the finished product will look) and "backing" (the thicker the backing fabric used, the better the foundation for embroidery) should become part of your vocabulary.

If your project in mind is a large quantity of embroidered items, ask to see a "sewout" before any actual embroidery is done.  This will be provided to you by the person "digitizing" the design.  Hopefully, your digitizer will have the creativity and sense to give your design depth, three-dimensional effect and create stitches that will reflect the light at different angles.  You can be the final judge on the quality of work before the project proceeds by looking at the sewout, making sure you like the way the stitches look, the density, the pull compensation and the backing that will be used.

When a digitizer has been creating designs for years, you will be the beneficiary of compliments for your embellished clothing.  Check out designs on www.lukewarmdesigns.com to see how quality digitizing will look when sewn out.