ImagesMagUK_September_2020

B adging for uniforms, whether done directly or created as standalone emblems, has been a staple of commercial embroidery throughout the history of the industry. With the new academic year beginning, now seems like the ideal time to talk about the pitfalls of digitising and executing complicated coats of arms, seals and the like for school uniforms. From art interpretation to embroidering these daunting designs, I’d like to share a few tips to help you get your education customers kitted out appropriately. Dealing with detail and density Crest designs are often layered with tightly packed detail covering the full design. Especially in the case of classic coats of arms, city seals or other highly- figured designs, you will often find the central area of the decoration festooned with tiny overlapping lines, fields of colour and other elements. Consider removing or reducing details; customers aren’t usually counting leaves on trees, they are looking for a clear representation of their design. Enlarge and add spacing between small elements to make designs easier to ‘read’, as this avoids both excess density and thread breaks due to overly small or packed stitching. If you have large areas of embroidered coverage in the background of the design, consider leaving open spaces in the lower layers of stitching for the upper elements to avoid the badge becoming overly stiff and dense. While a layer of satin stitches or small elements can be easily placed over a standard density fill, larger areas of full coverage, even if they are made of several elements, may be better served by removing underlying stitching. Taming the text Many designs will include some manner of motto placed in a banner or other element. Frequently, these motto- emblazoned banners are problematic to execute cleanly and legibly due to difficult text paths or their often minuscule size when scaled for the proper garment placement. Here are some tips to consider: Use straight-stitch text When faced with a long motto in a small space and/ or the height of the characters in the motto is less than 5mm when using 40wt thread, you may want to digitise the motto in straight stitches. To do this cleanly, you will use all capital letters and digitise the entirety of each word Software with custom enveloping allows you to draw precisely shaped elements for text inside banners www.images-magazine.com SEPTEMBER 2020 images 75 KB TIPS & TECHNIQUES A lesson in emblem embroidery Erich Campbell drills down into digitising badges for the schoolwear market