With baseball caps turning into the most beloved billboard for businesses worldwide to advertise themselves, it’s no wonder that orders seem to be piling up on every digitizer’s desk. As caps keep on gaining in popularity, it becomes absolutely necessary for the professional to sharpen his/her skills and get the digitization right in the first go. This is not only important for your own reputation’s sake, but also as your client is most probably pushing a tight deadline to their next promotional event or giveaway spree.
When it comes to digitizing for caps, they can be a bit of a challenge as they have a unique circular shape that sets them apart from any other fabric out there. This element is exactly what makes it all the more essential to understand how to digitize these pint-sized billboards and make the most of them. The following pointers will help the professional master those cap-abilities:
1) If your logo and contact information get fighting for space, don’t give up and blurt out a “can’t do”. You must consider placing the website or other contact details on the side or back of the cap, after due approval from the client. Getting creative with placement will help you get that perfect registration without compromising the advertising efforts of your client.
2) Another word on creative placement is putting elements of the design on either side of the center seam, so that each gets its breathing space. Going asymmetrical also puts a refreshing twist on the regular logo, monogram or company name.
3) The mark of an expert embroidery digitizer is to digitize from the inside out and bottom up for caps. This kind of treatment will ensure you don’t run into puckering or bubbling issues, improving the registration manifold.
4) As stitching on the cap tends to roll the fabric, it’s best to start by putting underlay underneath the design, so that the embroidery ties down the cap front to the backing from the word go. Do take note of this when dealing with difficult to tame fabrics like corduroy.
5) When digitizing for lettering, make sure to put in a single or double zigzag so that it stabilizes the target fabric, holds the backing in place and delivers a smooth letter or shape.
6) Another must-do for lettering is to be mindful of the compensation. Any expert embroidery digitizer will advise making the stitches wider where they tend to pull in and stop short wherever they start to push up. Applying this to lettering, remember that round letters pull in and vertical letters push out.
7) To deal with deep center seams, we suggest using a run stitch from bottom to the top of the design and then covering it up with a zigzag underlay to eliminate indentation in the final product.
8) Whenever you’re putting in satin columns in a cap, keep them under ¼” wide. Split satins can be used for wide columns to avoid thread snags.
9) For fills, remember to keep them at 0 or 90 degrees (vertical or horizontal) as other angles can compromise registration by pushing the cap. Shorter stitches in fills are a great way to prevent puckering.
10) For an embroidery digitizer dealing with small lettering on a cap, we recommend putting in a crisscross network of a loose fill in the same color as the cap to back the letters and prevent them from sinking in.
AUTOPOST by BEDEWY VISIT GAHZLY
