Large Text Power!

Ballpark.ESA in action...

Large Format Fonts

Introducing Upright Script8''Caps.ESA

When you want your stuff to look great, you don't really need the aggravation of fixing bad curves, worrying about stuff you may wreck..you want people to recommend you to others to advertise your business right? Everyone knows that word of mouth IS among the best advertising you can do, especially when you're a small business.

''As soon as I saw the attachments, I  sewed a 7"  3 letter monogram using my initials and it is stunning.   It sewed out perfectly and the curves are beautiful. 

You did a great job fixing those funky lines and chunky columns in the Upright Script.  I'm thrilled to have this font and have it look so beautiful,  and not require any editing!  The Upright Script NEW is awesome too.  I compared both the old & new and it is just amazing to see the differences!    You are awesome!''

Pix courtesy of Pascale Randolph. (UprightScriptCaps8''.ESA)

This font allows you to create great satin stitching at up to 8'' heights.

 A quick modification to this style..and I created a 3 letter monogram. Since 3 letter monograms are also popular, you can look forward to a 3 letter version for this style shortly.

Resizing Stitch Data

The industry is always full of talk about how everything can just be ‘resized’.
It may be so, but whether that works or not is a totally different matter.
The attached files are a good example of the types of considerations to be made.
You will continually hear about how someone resized, then had their string
of unfathomable experiences begin to occur, from needlbreaks to damaged
garments to clients simply rejecting work.

For every embroiderer, whether you’re in home markets or commercial, the
principles are the same if you are in it for ‘business’ purposes and want to actually see
it expand in profitability. Now that industry has been whittled down to a common
scenario of ‘anything goes’ embroidery, it explains the historical closure of most
businesses within 1-2 years.

The same principles in this design, also apply to monograms, general and
personalization fonts. While it's a cool addon to have for borders or even main parts
of designs, take a bit of time to look at the differences in the sizes or stitch them,
and you’ll have a much clearer idea of why special changes are necessary
depending on the content of designs or lettering.

The designs are very functional and useful elements so, I hope you enjoy
stitching these. You can use them in numerous layouts with simple additions and
if your machine is well tuned, and you use these with recommended stabilizers,
you’ll be sure to find that anyone will be easily impressed with your larger
design capability.

Emulating Hand Stitched patterns

It's not easy to emulate hand stitched designs, but you can get close enough on some types. Creating them depends on your thread weights and projects. Quite a few can create easy ones, but some do find the more intricate shapes a bit difficult. Machine embroidery can never really emulate the beauty of hand stitched styles, but you can get fair results on some. How you create the shape will detemine whether you get double stitches and knots at times, so practicing this can assist you. Curves can requires some spacing changes and at times even reworking the motif.

See a motif emulation.Click!

Realtime Production Scenario

It's the little things that make the difference as to where your output lands, and why you may not get an order or go on to get repeat orders. If you look carefully you may be able to recognise an auto-generation. Unfortunately, software sales are based on this type of marketing...some even believe that what is output is 'great'. It can stun most digitizers really, but this is what we contend with on a daily basis.

The client gets a rush order, and is provided with a file. If you think about it, this stuff is 'acceptable' to perhaps many that know no better. They're PA's and ad executives in possession of such data.

Of course, it won't end, but it's worth a peek. Things have to be rushed in the world of corporate digitizing, so it had to be redone..fast. Its 300 stitches lighter and that's not all!

Just starting to Digitize?

This is a very generic example of digitizing using the basic satin and runstitch styles. If you just started at digitizing, lesson #1 is:

Learn to visualize

This clip is mostly for anyone that wants to learn to 'visualize' so it will break your thought patterns into 9 different considerations of a single optical view. The human mind can be trained to view such scenarios in around 7 conditions at a minimum. If you are just learning to digitize and wish to grow, then pay attention for 15-16 minutes.

A common problem for many is trying to do everything at once. Before trying to cover yourself in many philosophies and technical intricacies, you have to teach your mind to look at things differently. Embroidery is any many ways a kind of quantum mathematics with many variables and invisibilities that only materialize in 'thread'.

To become fluent in embroidery digitizing, you have to teach your mind to cycle though multiple outcomes in a short space of time. If you do this exercise sincerely, it is actually a life lesson that can help guide everything you do. No theories can teach you this, and no classes are long enough...but you have this clip at your disposal everyday.


Take the challenge. 30 minutes a day. 30 days.
Look at this clip once every 3 days, and see whether you notice things you missed. At first view, you may see the clip seems to be 15 minutes long. It is actually around 3600 seconds in 'observation' time.

Pull Compensation is another big topic. You cannot absorb everything in a day so that will have more focus in another topic because that also has multiple facets. This clip doesn't really focus on that. First, learn to change the way you look at shapes. If you take the challenge, in 30 days you will begin to see every object you look at in simultaneous different paths.

A Lesson in Pathing and object Sequence.
Click to watch.
This is created in I-Cliqq but anyone can follow the principles.

Script Zuliano- Corporate Power Script

Script Zuliano in action!

(click to see clip)

You can see a clip of this style in action.

Developed for a corporate bid, this style wopped the competition and won a client multiple orders on teamwear caps and bags, besides some printed aspects.

I'd seen a few of the tendered samples. It being that I am in the corporate field I can almost always recognise the general onboard fonts of most software, or see where someone has tried a TTF conversion to attempt to just get a fast result. The problem is, you don't know who is seeing that, and you may not hear from a potential customer again because of it.

In this case, the customer of the client put forth the scanned results of different samples from 5 companies. The client saw a couple of additional sewouts..I just saw the scans. This is the typical high end, fussy type of client that has the vision of what they want, but will want you to show them that vision. They will not know what it is, but know exactly what it isn't. You recognise the type? This is the exact type. They have the $ to spend and you really want that order. It doesn't end there. Chances are it's next year's order too!

You may recognise the scenario well, because it is exactly what many customers do when either pricing, checking to see what will best suit their requirement or looking for different ideas. 12 teams. Multiple items. It's worth a few thousands, so its nice to actually 'hook that order'.

*1 - Do not really expect that the average co around the corner really has much different from you. Today, most co's use similar or the same brands and will therefore offer the same font ranges.

*2 - You may think you just satisfied a client with the ordinary but they're comparing several attempts. Do not be caught with the 'ordinary' when it counts. Those are ok for onesies perhaps, but not when you need to outclass multiple bidders.

*3 - A customer may not say anything in your presence, but will sure have lots to say in the presence of someone else, especially if you didn't make the grade.

These are important points to consider when you're in the world of corporate design and supply. They count especially when trying to hook larger orders and also when doing smaller personalized work. There is more to 'fonts' than perhaps meets the eye, and for many it might be their imagination that all fonts are created equally.

Working in the corporate and promo sector is demanding, and has many deadlines. I'm not really  too much on the talkative side, because the work constraints are actually about getting the job done. In the time that someone wastes expounding about the long and technical aspects of something, I tend to actually just perform the task. It's my primary nature of reaction to designs, bids and briefs in general.

Some tips on Vector Files

Node Refinement on outlines

Some aspects of Vector Cleanup

There are numerous clips available allover. Many of these generally have to do with just the 'graphic' aspect, but refining a vector for 'embroidery' always requires more consideration.
MANY get fooled by what they see as 'instant vectors' as opposed to what may actually be usable and productive.