Embroidery is a booming opportunity in product customization. The global market was over $2.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to nearly $6 billion by 2028, reinforcing how much consumers love the creativity and sense of craftsmanship embroidered designs bring. Precise stitching and mutli-colored designs are perfect for customizing soft goods such as uniforms, caps, coats, blankets, shirts and more. Whether it’s monogramming, patches, or even corporate branding for team gifts/swag, embroidery has huge untapped potential.
Unfortunately, at a commercial level, embroidery can be challenging. The need for manual oversight by embroidery artists and operators throughout the process makes scalable solutions difficult. Additionally, automated digitization processes often incorrectly predict overall stitch counts, mis-estimating them by anywhere from 10-50%, leading to unsatisfied customers and missed revenue opportunities.
Recognizing an opportunity, Spectrum set out to create a scalable and integrated embroidery solution for our clients. The end result is an online personalization experience that taps into the unique look of embroidery on a fan’s favorite products, bringing them confidence and increasing the likelihood of purchase. Here’s how we did it:
ACCURACY IN DIGITIZATION
When embroidery projects are inaccurately digitized, pricing and production issues quickly surface. To solve this problem, Spectrum applied our customization experience to the overall embroidery process, beginning with a validation process for user’s artwork at the initial point of customization, with the following criteria:
- Auto-detect image complexity (i.e. photos vs logos)
- Moderation monitoring for copyrights and trademark IP through Spectrum Protect
- DPI/resolution checking
- Overall validation to confirm logo sizing and material/stitch count fit
Once artwork is confirmed to be accurate and validated, Spectrum works with the highest quality digitization partner in the business to create a digitized logo exactly to the customer’s expectations.
COMMON EMBROIDERY FILE TYPES
Spectrum works with the two main file types within the industry:
- DST: Data Stitch Tajima – the first format created that allows an embroidery machine to know where to place stitches. Unfortunately, this file type does NOT provide any color information, so an operator must assign thread colors.
- EMB: Embroidery Format – Spectrum’s file format of choice, a proprietary format created by Wilcom and used by most industry machines. It utilizes attributes of the DST, but also contains color information.
1. Our process begins with user-uploaded files that are graded and evaluated to be print-ready
2. Spectrum embroidery technology provides the ability to edit and change individual thread colors within specific graphic elements
BRINGING ADDITIONAL COLOR OPTIONS
At a manual level, embroidery offers limitless color options, as thread colors can be changed to create infinite designs. Commercially, however, file types have limited color options, thus minimizing the creativity of embroidery. Spectrum solves that challenge by adding the ability to colorize artwork and isolate individual art elements for separate colors, within an .EMB file. Within our platform, logos are automatically scanned with this level of colorization, eliminating the need for re-scanning. Isolating design elements within a logo means brands are no longer limited to 1-color logos on their embroidered goods, and can be more true to their overall brand identity.
Spectrum’s technology makes it easy to colorize artwork and isolate individual art elements as separate colors.
Embroidery brings a unique element of personalization – a classic sense of craftsmanship combined with creative opportunities. Spectrum has integrated the commercial details and nuances within our platform, so our clients can take full advantage of this embellishment without needing to worry about the nuances.