Artwork that survives production: preparing a logo for stitch and press
A logo is designed for a screen, where it can be any size, any colour, infinitely sharp. A garment is a different medium: a needle has a minimum size, a heat press has a minimum line weight, and cotton moves. The gap between those two worlds is where custom branding jobs get delayed.
Almost every day lost on a custom run is lost before production starts, waiting on artwork. Here is what our lab checks when your file arrives, so you can check it first.
Send vector. Always vector.
We accept SVG, EPS, AI or print-ready PDF. These are vector formats: the logo is stored as mathematical outlines, so it scales from a cap front to a back print without softening.
What we cannot use directly is a PNG pulled off a website, a JPG from a slide deck, or a screenshot of any of the above. Those are pixel grids. At 500px wide they look fine on a screen and fall apart at print resolution, and for embroidery they give a digitiser nothing clean to trace. If a raster file is genuinely all that exists — it happens, agencies close, founders lose source files — we can redraw it, but that is a separate step with its own turnaround.
The test: open the file and zoom to 800%. Crisp edges, it is vector. Soft or blocky, it is raster.
What happens to your file in the lab
Every file we receive goes through the same checks before anything is quoted as final:
Format and integrity. Vector? Fonts outlined? All layers present?
Reproduction check against the chosen method. Will this stitch at the size you want, or does the detail need simplifying? Will it press cleanly on this fabric?
Colour. Pantone or hex values matched to thread or print colour, and confirmed with you.
Sizing and placement. Physical dimensions agreed in millimetres, on the actual garment, before production.
Digitising, for embroidery. Your outlines become a stitch file — stitch types, directions, densities, underlay. This is where a logo is genuinely translated rather than copied.
You see the result of all five before we start. Nothing goes onto a garment on an assumption.
Designing for stitch
Embroidery has physical limits, and they are unforgiving. These are the constraints that catch out the most logos:
Minimum text height
As a rule of thumb across the industry, stitched lettering needs roughly 5mm of cap height to stay legible, and more for a serif or a script face. Below that, letterforms fill in — the counters of an a, e or o close up, and the word turns into a smudge. If your logo carries a tagline in small type, the usual answer is to drop the tagline from the stitched version and keep it for print placements.
Minimum line weight
Hairlines do not stitch. A rule thinner than about 1mm at final size either disappears or has to be thickened, which changes the logo's proportions. Better to decide that deliberately with us than to discover it on a sample.
Colour count
Each thread colour is a separate run on the machine. Four colours is comfortable; twelve is a different quote and a stiffer badge. Gradients cannot be stitched at all — they get reinterpreted as discrete colour blocks, which for some marks looks strong and for others looks nothing like the original.
Density and hand feel
A large solid area of stitch makes a heavy, rigid panel. On a 450GSM hoodie that is fine. On a lightweight tee it distorts the fabric and the garment never hangs right again. Where a mark is large and solid, we will usually recommend pressing it instead.
Designing for press
DTF is far more permissive, but it is not unconstrained. Three things matter:
Colour mode. Send Pantone or hex references alongside the file. Screens are additive RGB, and printers are subtractive CMYK, so a vivid RGB blue or a neon green cannot always be hit exactly. We flag the ones that will shift and confirm the closest match with you before production.
Very fine detail on textured fabric. A transfer bonds to the surface it is pressed onto. Fine linework on smooth cotton is sharp; the same artwork on heavy fleece or ripstop sits on a moving surface and softens.
Transparency and effects. Drop shadows, blend modes, and soft glows may render differently once flattened for print. If the effect is essential to the mark, tell us so we can proof it specifically.
Sizing and placement
Placement gets described in vague language — "normal size, on the chest" — and vague language is how a logo ends up 20mm too big. Specify in millimetres. The conventions we work to, as starting points rather than rules:
Left chest: roughly 70–90mm wide, positioned to sit just below the collarbone.
Cap front: about 50mm of usable height on a standard structured 6-panel.
Full back: 250–300mm wide, top edge roughly a hand's width below the collar seam.
Sleeve: 50–70mm wide, on the upper arm.
Sizes are constant across a run — a logo scaled proportionally to each garment size looks wrong lined up on a rack. And remember that placement is measured on the garment, not on the flat artboard: a chest mark on an oversized fit sits differently from the same mark on a boxy tee.
The handover checklist
Send this and your job goes straight into the queue:
Vector logo — SVG, EPS, AI or print-ready PDF, fonts outlined.
A one-colour version, for garments where the full-colour mark will not read.
Brand colours as Pantone or hex values.
Garments, sizes and quantities per size.
Placement and size in millimetres for each position.
Branding method per placement — or ask us to recommend one.
Your deadline, if you have a fixed one.
Missing something? Send what you have. Most of the list is a conversation, not a barrier — and the quote builder gives you an indicative number before any of it is finalised.
Not sure whether your logo should be stitched or pressed? That decision is covered in Embroidery or DTF. Artwork ready? Send it through the contact page, and we will come back with a reproduction check and a firm quote.
