The Problem Every Business Owner Discovers Too Late
You’ve spent time and money developing a logo that looks perfect on your website, your van, your business cards. Then you order embroidered workwear and something feels off. The colours look slightly different. The fine lines in your logo are blurry. The overall effect isn’t quite what you expected.
This isn’t a fault with the embroidery process. It’s a predictable outcome when businesses don’t understand how logos translate to thread — and it’s entirely preventable when you know what to look for.
Why Logos Look Different on Fabric
Three factors change how your logo reads on embroidered workwear:
- Thread vs. ink: Thread is a physical, three-dimensional medium. It catches light differently from ink on paper or pixels on a screen. Colours look slightly different because they’re reflecting ambient light from a textured surface rather than emitting from a screen.
- Fabric texture: The weave of the fabric creates a micro-texture that affects how fine details in a logo are perceived. Very thin lines, tiny text below 4mm, and hairline details simply cannot be reproduced at embroidery resolution.
- Stitch direction: Experienced digitisers use stitch direction to create visual impact and contrast. But if a logo is poorly digitised, conflicting stitch directions create a muddy, confused appearance rather than a clean result.
How to Prepare Your Logo for the Best Embroidery Result
Simplify fine details: Any element of your logo that’s less than 2mm wide at the intended embroidery size needs to be either removed or thickened. This includes thin borders, small text, and delicate graphic elements. A good digitiser will advise you on this — and at Customised Workwear, we review every logo before digitising begins.
Minimum text size: Embroidered text needs to be at least 5mm tall (cap height) to read clearly. Below this, stitches merge and letters become unreadable. If your logo contains small text, we’ll advise on whether it’s viable at your chosen size or whether a simplified version would serve better.
Colour count: Every colour in your embroidery is a separate thread. Most logos work well with 3–6 thread colours. Very complex multi-colour logos with many gradients or tonal variations need to be simplified for embroidery — we’ll show you how.
Getting a Proof Before Production
At Customised Workwear, every new order starts with a digital proof showing your logo as it will appear in thread. We flag any issues before a single stitch is made. For large orders, we produce a physical sample garment for your approval before full production begins.
This process protects you. It means there are no surprises when your order arrives. Browse our workwear bundles and contact us to start your order with complete confidence.