Most schools

During the time I operated a sporting goods business, I often had the opportunity to explain to customers the process that had to take place so that their new uniforms could have the personalized look they wanted. Time after time I found myself needing to explain the process to customers. Here's what you should know.
Digitizing from an existing logo
Most schools, sports clubs or other organizations that have existed for any significant amount of time have an established logo. It's a much less common occurrence to have someone ask an embroidery digitizer to define a major aspect of their organization's branding by putting together a logo that will end up on shirts, hats, and other articles that represent the organization. [Despite that fact, I'd have to say that the digitizers I've known by and large have the same creative skills with Photoshop and Illustrator that are used by the logo creators from marketing companies. But that's beside the point.]
A digitized embroidery file is different from a.jpg, a. Balenciaga 084324C Off-White
gif, a.psd (Adobe Photoshop), an.ai (Adobe Illustrator), or any of the other common image formats available. In order for your logo to go from the wonderful looking graphic that it is to stitches on a polo shirt, a file has to be created that can be read by the embroidery file. The process of making that transition from graphic to sew file is called digitizing, and it requires the skill of a talented expert to be done right. In fact, there are hundreds of different ways in which a graphic can be digitized Balenciaga 084324C Pink
, which means that a graphic could ultimately end up looking one way for one digitizer while significantly different if digitized by a different digitizer. Here's why: the process of digitizing graphics involves using complicated software to explain to the embroidery machine how to do various stitch patterns to re-create the graphic using needle and thread instead of the pixels or digital vectors that are used in the graphic itself. You can see that this process lends itself to having all sorts of unique results from the same graphic.
Designing and digitizing from scratch
Most digitizing software comes with a tool suite that includes design tools that can be used to design a digitized file from Balenciaga 084324C Orange
scratch. The easier designs to do from scratch are personalized names. For our customers, we would normally send them a sample of a few different fonts to get their okay. Then we'd simply type the names into the digitizing software using the text style the customer picked. When creating logos or other more personalized designs, the digitizing from scratch process is much more involved, but the digitizer still has at her disposal many helper functions she can use to create your design on the fly.
How much does it cost
The least amount I've paid to have a graphic digitized in the US is $25, and that was for a simple logo that likely took the digitizer 20 minutes to finish. For complex logos, I've seen digitizers charge as much as $70. If you plan on having your design embroidered on more than one occasion, it would likely be worth it to keep the digitized logo on file. That way you're not tied to a specific embroiderer who may not be able to meet your time line or expectations. Most embroiderers are reluctant to pass on to you the digitized file if they are the ones who contracted out the digitization process for you. They often consider your digitized logo to be their property, even if you've paid for the digitization to be done. Although I've never thought it was good business, I understand that embroiderers don't want to give away their opportunity to monopolize your business.
Now that you know what it takes to prepare your design to go on those flashy new jackets you're getting for your next company trip, you will be better prepared when given the responsibility to make sure the team looks sharp.
From Concept to Physical Creation - Preparing a Design For Embroidery