Embroidery digitising
Left chest logo digitising
A left chest sits inside roughly 3.5 x 2 inches, which means every decision is a trade-off. We punch it so the text still reads after the shirt has been washed twenty times.
Numbers above are typical, not promises — the design decides. You get the actual figures in the quote before any work starts.
What actually goes wrong at this size
Almost every left chest that comes back looking wrong has the same problem: someone scaled the artwork down and let the software decide what to do with the small text. At 4mm cap height a satin column is about 0.9mm wide. Push the density a large design uses and the letters fill in and turn into a blob. Back the density off too far and you see the fabric through the stitches.
So we set the small text by hand. Letters under 5mm get a running stitch or a narrow satin with a single centre-run underlay, and we widen the counters in an "e" or an "a" slightly so the hole survives pull-in. It is not a filter you can apply, it is fifteen minutes of nudging nodes.
Fabric changes the file, not just the settings
A pique polo and a 300gsm fleece are two different jobs. Pique has a knit texture that swallows thin outlines, so we add a light edge-walk to hold the shape. Fleece has pile that wants to poke up through the fill, so the underlay goes in heavier and we lift the top density a touch to compensate. On a softshell, or anything with a coating, we drop stitch count and loosen density so the needle does not perforate the face.
Tell us the garment when you send the logo. If you do not know yet we punch for a mid-weight woven and note in the reply what we would change for knits. You keep the file either way.
Stitch count, honestly
A two-colour wordmark with a small icon usually lands between 4,000 and 7,000 stitches. Anything claiming a left chest can be done in 2,000 has either dropped detail or thinned the fill until it looks starved. We aim for the lowest count that still holds up, and we put the number in the reply so you can price your run.
What lands in your inbox
The stitch file in whichever formats you asked for, a printable worksheet with the colour sequence and stitch count, and a flat preview image you can forward to your client. Ask for the editable source and you get that too, at no extra cost — it is your design.
- EMB
- DST
- PES
- JEF
- EXP
- VP3
- HUS
- XXX
- CND
Next step
Need a left chest file?
Attach the artwork, tell us the finished width, the fabric and the format your machine reads. You will have a price and a delivery time back shortly.
Or email orders@zbpunch.com — orders taken 24/7 — someone is on chat almost all day.