Throughout the years we have been asked many questions about embroidery, tshirt printing, Signs and Banners and other services we have offered to our clients around Southern Ontario. Below we have tried to summarize the most frequently asked questions to our staff. If you still have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
A setup file or digitized file is necessary so that our embroidery machines can read your logo and know where to start stitching. It is a process of tracing your logo or text, and physically telling the embroidery machine where to start a stitch, where to stop, when to have a thread cut, what type of stitch to use and even what type of fill to use..
Louies charges a flat fee for digitizing or setting up your logo.
For a left chest, ball cap size logo we charge $50.00
For a larger size logo up to about 8″ wide we charge $95.00
Any logo, such as a full back of a jacket would be by quote.
Traditional screen printing or t-shirt printing is the process of separating every colour in your logo and creating a physical screen in which ink is squeezed through onto the shirt. It works like a layer upon layer. There is allot of work that goes into setting up a screen. It is much like creating a negative in photography. The screen must have emulsion coated on it. A negative is printed on vellum paper and then the scren is “burned” by placing light under the screen. The screen then is washed out leaving the burned image. We then have to place all the screen on the carosel ensuring proper registration is setup for all screens. As you see there is allot of work that goes into printing a t-shirt way before the ink is ever used.
Louies charges $20.00 per colour for setup per logo or logo size. A left chest logo that is the same logo as a full back logo will need both setup seperately.
So if you have a 3 colour logo you would have a $60.00 setup for t-shirt printing.
Unlike Embroidery which has a one time setup fee, screen printing must be setup every single time you order.
We use Illustrator CS6. In order to reporduce your logo in the highest quality it helps to start with a high quality image. We would love to receive your logo in a VECTOR format with all text outlined(this means if you send us text we may not have your font so it must be converted to outlines before you send it)
A vector image allows us to enlarge or decrease the size without losing quality of the image.
A file format of AI, EPS, PDF, would probably work great. For some embroidery jobs we can use a high quality JPEG.
We cannot use a copy – paste from an image from the internet!
Yes, as a matter of fact we prefer your refer to a pms colour so we know what we can best match to. Â Some products only offer certain imprint colours and we cannot match pms colours for the imprint but we will inform you. Â In some cases, some of the printing we do we are able to match to a pms colour but in order to do so an additional charge would apply for this service to use a specialized ink. Â PMS colour match is not guaranteed, we match a close as possible but due to some of the product materials or colours exact match is not possible. We will advise at the time of order any concerns we have with the printing process.
Embroidery is one decorating service that is very difficult to match PMS colours on threads as there are only so many colours that are available. We will try to match the thread as best possible. We use ISACORD threads.
In addition to creating custom websites that may include online stores for our clients, we can also create an online store for spiritwear and fund raising. We can host the online store directly from our main site and have all of your parents order direct. Call or email us for details.
Yes you can however….we cannot be responsible for any damage that may occur to the garments. The suppliers we use have tested their products thoroughly with the different decorating options and have proven that their products can stand up in the manufacturing process of printing using the commercial inks and processes we use. For embroidery, needles can break, items can become lodged and sewn together. It happens on occasion.
We will do our best to replace the items if possible through our own wholesale suppliers so that you are not at a loss. But items that are purchased or brought in from other retailers or suppliers cannot be replaced and therefore are decorated at the client’s risk.
Items that are brought to us MUST be clean and free from dirt and odor. We will not accept anything that is not in a “like new” condition.
Louies has the ability to print using DTG or a heat transfer type process full colour photographic pictures onto tshirts. Sometimes with photos you would like to remove the background and just keep items in the foreground. We can do this for you, but comes with an art charge, or you can use this great free online tool that will prepare your photo for printing.
BURNER BONANZA Photo Background Cleaner
This free tool allows you to prepare photos such as this.
