Preparing Artwork for Embroidery: What Works and What Fills In

Artwork stitches cleanly when lines are thick enough for thread to hold, text is above roughly a quarter inch tall, and the colour count is reduced to distinct thread colours rather than gradients. Ready to start? custom embroidery.

What is the minimum line weight?

Thread has physical width, so anything thinner than about one millimetre at final size will fill in and read as a solid blob. Hairline outlines, thin serifs and fine crosshatching are the usual casualties. The fix is to thicken deliberately rather than let the machine decide - a slightly bolder version of your logo is far better than a muddy accurate one.

How small can text go?

Roughly a quarter inch tall is the practical floor for legibility, and that is for simple sans-serif letterforms. Below that, the gaps inside letters close up and words become shapes. If a tagline will not survive at that size, dropping it entirely usually looks more professional than stitching something unreadable.

What about gradients and photos?

They do not translate. Embroidery is discrete thread colours, not a continuous tone medium, so a gradient becomes bands and a photograph becomes noise. Designs with either need converting into flat colour areas first. We flatten artwork to correct thread colours as standard and will flag anything that needs a decision before production rather than producing something disappointing.

Prepare artwork this way

• Send a PNG or SVG with a transparent background
• Thicken any line under about one millimetre at final size
• Keep text above roughly a quarter inch tall, or remove it
• Reduce gradients to flat colour areas before submitting

Is there really no minimum order?

None. One piece is a real order at normal pricing with no small-order surcharge. Traditional printers set minimums because screen printing and machine embroidery both carry a fixed per-job setup cost that has to be spread across enough pieces to be worth doing. Print-on-demand production has no per-job setup, so the reason for the minimum simply does not exist - which is why ordering one to check it before committing the budget is the standard advice here.

How long does it take to arrive?

Every order is made to order and ships in five to nine business days, and that window covers a single piece and a two-hundred-piece run alike - there is no separate multi-week queue for larger orders. Our fastest verified US delivery was three days on real carrier tracking, and our fastest verified international delivery was Latvia to New York in five days. For an event, order about two weeks ahead so there is room to check the first piece and distribute sizes.

Where to go next

There is no digitizing fee, so a design that needs rebuilding does not become an extra bill. See when to print instead of stitch.

See the merch in real life

Real garments, printed and embroidered to order.