Embroidery and Printing: How a Logo Reaches the Garment

Decoration is settled before the cloth is cut, not after the garment is sewn. On a knitted order the mark is applied to flat panels against a template taken from your confirmed pattern, which is why a misprint costs one panel instead of one finished garment. Screen printing and DTG run on our print floor in Dongguan; embroidery, chenille and appliqué are quoted inside the same garment order and approved on the same sealed sample. This page sits alongside the six processes we run on our own floor, which are set out on the manufacturing page. The minimum is 100 pieces per style per colour with sizes mixed inside a colour, and a bonded build starts at 200. Sampling takes 3–7 days from a confirmed design, and bulk runs 15–25 days after the sample is approved and the deposit is received.

What the Artwork Has to Answer Before a Method Is Chosen

The method follows the artwork, not the other way round. A file that carries gradients, half-tones or photographic shading cannot be reproduced in thread, however fine the stitch. A file built from three flat spot colours does not need a digital process, and putting it through one costs more than it should. So the first question is not “which method is best” but “what does this mark actually contain”.

Five things have to be settled in writing with the file. Whether the artwork is vector or raster, because a raster file has to be redrawn before it can be enlarged. How many spot colours it uses, because that number decides the screen count on a screen print and the price on everything else. The thinnest stroke in the design, because that sets a floor on the method. The finished size and the placement, because a mark that is right at 8 cm is not the same drawing at 25 cm. And the fabric it will sit on, because the same file reads differently on combed jersey, on brushed fleece and on a bonded panel. Those fabric families are described on the T-shirt and hoodie pages, and a weight can be converted with the fabric weight calculator if your side and our side are using different units.

Embroidery: Flat, 3D Puff, Chenille and Appliqué

Embroidery is thread laid onto the panel, so it carries texture and depth that no print does. Flat embroidery is the default for chest crests, sleeve marks and small wordmarks. Density and stitch direction decide whether the mark sits crisp or pulls the cloth around it, and both are set at the sew-out rather than described in a quote.

3D puff raises the mark by running foam under the stitches. It reads strongly on a cap or a heavy hoodie chest, and it needs a wider minimum stroke than flat work, because a thin line cannot hold the foam. Chenille builds a thicker, chenille-y texture for varsity-style lettering and patches. Appliqué stitches a cut fabric shape onto the panel and borders it with a satin edge, which is how a two-tone logo gets a fabric face rather than a stitched one.

Every one of these shares the same two constraints. Fine detail and gradients do not survive the translation into thread, and a stitch area on a stretch knit needs a backing that suits the fabric, or the panel puckers around the mark. Both are the reason a sew-out is approved before bulk, not a rendering.

Screen Printing: Plastisol, Water-based, Discharge and Puff

Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh, one screen per colour. Plastisol sits on top of the cloth, stays opaque and holds bright colour on a dark ground. Water-based ink sinks into the fibre and leaves a softer hand, which matters on a lightweight tee where a heavy deposit changes how the garment drapes. Discharge printing removes dye from the cloth rather than adding ink, so it needs a dyed cotton ground and produces a tone-on-tone result that feels like nothing is there. Puff adds a foaming agent to the ink and raises the mark.

Every colour in the artwork is a screen, and every screen is a setup, so the colour count is the main cost driver on this method. Cure temperature and dwell are set per fabric and per ink, and they are recorded per run, because an under-cured plastisol print fails in the wash and an over-cured one cracks on a poly blend. Where a design has five colours on a 300-piece order, it is often worth putting the same artwork through DTG and comparing the two quotes side by side.

DTG, DTF and Sublimation

Direct-to-garment prints straight onto the panel from a digital file, which suits short runs and designs with many colours, gradients or photographic content. It is a cotton process; on a high-polyester face the ink sits differently and the hand changes. DTF prints the artwork onto a film and transfers it, which extends the same freedom to blends and to fabrics that DTG does not take well. Sublimation dyes the paper and drives it into polyester under heat, so it is the route for all-over prints on poly-rich fabric and it cannot be used on cotton at all.

Heat transfer sits in the same family and has its own page, because the cloth face decides how the transfer reads: heat transfer printing covers artwork, placement and fabric matching in detail. The distinction that matters when quoting is that a transfer is applied to flat cut panels under a press, while DTG and screen printing are also run at the cut-piece stage rather than on a finished, sewn garment.

Where the Method Meets the Fabric

Read that table as a set of decisions rather than a menu. A mark that is quoted on the wrong line comes back as a rework, and the rework usually sits in the fabric rather than in the artwork: a stitch area that puckers a stretch knit, a plastisol deposit that is too heavy for a 160 GSM jersey, a sublimation print attempted on a cotton tee. Where the garment is a polo, a bonded construction adds a further constraint, because a seam-sealed panel cannot take a stitch area across the seam.

Placement, Size and the Panel Template

Placement is specified on the order, not decided at the machine. A left chest mark usually sits at roughly 8–10 cm wide, while a full chest or a full back is a different proportion and needs its own drawing rather than a scaled copy of the same file. Sleeve, hem and back yoke each carry their own position. Because decoration is applied while the panels are still flat, position is measured against a template taken from your confirmed pattern — not judged by eye on a sewn garment, where the cloth has already moved.

Two consequences follow. A placement change after the template is made is a new template, so it belongs at sampling. And on a style with a placket, a pocket or a bonded seam, the mark has to clear the construction by a margin that is agreed in the drawing, otherwise the decoration and the build fight for the same few centimetres.

Trims That Travel With the Decoration

Decoration rarely arrives alone. A branded order usually carries a woven neck label, a printed care and size label, a hangtag and often a silicone badge or a jacquard label, and those are ordered alongside the garment rather than on top of it. Trim minimums run in parallel with the garment minimum: 1,000 pieces for woven labels and hangtags, and 300 for jacquard labels and silicone badges, both counted per design. The full set is set out in the branding package guide, and the wider service is described under private label apparel production.

One link between the two is easy to miss: the care label wording has to match what was actually applied. A print that is expected to fade with washing, a discharge print on a garment-dyed ground and a bonded panel each carry different care instructions, and the label is written from the approved sample rather than from a template.

Sampling, Bulk and What Gets Approved

Decoration is approved at sampling, on the cloth that will actually be cut. For embroidery that means a sew-out on the panel; for printing it means a strike-off against the dyed shade, because a colour approved on a white swatch is not approved on a navy one. Sampling takes 3–7 days from a confirmed design. Sampling is charged, and the charge is credited against a first order of 300 pieces on that style. The sampling sequence itself is described under how long samples take, and a 100-piece order walks through a full run from artwork to carton.

Bulk runs 15–25 days after the sample is approved and the deposit is received, with decoration applied at the cut-piece stage inside that window, before sewing. That sequence is deliberate: a panel that is decorated and then rejected costs one panel, while the same fault found after assembly costs a garment. Finished goods are inspected to AQL 2.5 against the sealed sample, and the approved artwork file is part of the order file the inspection returns to.

Send the artwork file, the placement, the finished size, the quantity per style and colour, and the fabric you have in mind. Anything that cannot be confirmed in writing before sampling is not something to leave for the bulk run. A factory visit can be arranged around a production day so that the press and the embroidery work are seen running, and a quote starts from the contact page.

Frequently asked questions

Can you embroider a logo with fine detail?

Up to a point, and the limit is set by the thinnest stroke rather than by the size of the mark. Thread needs a minimum width to lie flat and hold its shape, so hairline rules, small type and gradients are redrawn or simplified before a sew-out. The practical route is to send the vector file and let the digitised version come back for approval; if the mark cannot survive digitising, the same artwork usually works as a print, and both routes can be quoted together.

Does decoration change the minimum order?

No. Embroidery, screen printing, DTG, DTF, sublimation and heat transfer all run inside the standard minimum of 100 pieces per style per colour, with sizes mixed inside a colour. Only a bonded or seam-sealed build changes the count, at 200 pieces per style per colour, and that is a construction decision rather than a decoration one. Trims carry their own minimums in parallel, at 1,000 for woven labels and hangtags and 300 for jacquard labels and silicone badges per design.

Is screen printing or embroidery cheaper?

It depends on the colour count and the placement rather than on the method in the abstract. Screen printing carries a setup per colour, so a one-colour mark on a large run is usually the cheapest route and a six-colour mark on a small run is usually the most expensive. Embroidery carries a digitising cost once and then prices by stitch count and placement, which makes it competitive on small marks at volume. Send the artwork, the quantity and the placement, and both are quoted side by side.

Can you decorate a bonded or seamless panel?

It has to be planned rather than added. A bonded panel carries a film instead of a stitch line, so a decoration that needs a stitch area, a backing or a press cycle has to be agreed against that construction and trialled on it. On seamless polo and bonded sportswear the usual route is a low-profile mark placed clear of the seam, and the position is fixed on the sample. Bonded builds start at 200 pieces per style per colour, and the film is matched to the fabric of each order.

Do you print on finished garments or on cut panels?

On cut panels, before assembly. Panels are decorated while they are still flat, positioned against a template made from your confirmed pattern, and then sewn. That is why a fault costs one panel instead of one garment, and why placement on the finished piece is consistent across a run rather than set by eye at a machine. The one exception is a wash or an overdye, which is applied to the made-up garment and therefore moves the finished measurements.