Andy Needham has over 27 years of experience in embroidery digitizing. He previously worked for and managed the largest digitizing company in the UK, David Sharp Ltd, before founding his own company, The Motifs Co. Ltd. He discusses how the industry has changed from hand-drawing designs to using early digital software to current windows-based programs. While some companies do simple vector conversions without adjustments, Needham emphasizes adjusting designs for quality and efficient production. He is concerned about the devaluing of the industry by low-cost, low-quality internet-based vector digitizing and hopes to inform customers of the value of experienced digitizers who can produce high-quality embroidery designs.
The document is a business plan for an online store called Style Galore that will serve as a platform to help up-and-coming fashion designers sell their unique clothing and accessory designs. The business will connect designers, who focus on design and production, with customers by managing the marketing, sales and distribution of the designers' products through an e-commerce website. The plan outlines the services offered to designers, production and sales processes, goals to differentiate the business from competitors and create an international brand, and potential future developments.
The document discusses failing and creating original work. It references a quote from Sir Ken Robinson stating that if you are not prepared to fail, you will never create anything original. The quote is from Robinson's book "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything."
Established in 2000 by Steve Price, Plan-B Studio is a creative agency with global experience, consisting of a core studio team (Steve) and an extended network of talent.
Steve believes his job is not to preach to clients about what his role is but to learn as much as possible about you, your company and your business model. That way the resulting creative work you pay me to do is based on informed attributes rather than desires to make pretty shapes.
There is no need for mystery, barriers or illusions between designer and client. A project starts with a discussion which, in theory, should never end. Ultimately, for Steve, it is about working with people who are equally passionate, driven and brilliant at what they do.
Steve once said that ‘Just as behind every man there is a great woman, so too is a great idea behind every design.’ (he wasn’t drunk).
Every project is different and is approached with a blank page, a sharpened pencil and begins with
a discussion.
I have spent the last ten years building not just a design consultancy, but a network of passionate, creative and innovative peers across all media. The industry that we work in has evolved and very rarely do you find one agency that has all the relevant skills that is so often required for most projects. Those that say they do, are either lying, or not lying; mostly lying though.
Steve is a visiting lecturer at the Arts Academy Bergen, Hyper Island, Central Saint Martins, Cardiff University, LCC, Nottingham Trent University, Winchester Art School and KBU in Kuala Lumpur. As well as recently awarded an Associate-Professorship from the Arts Academy in Bergen (KHiB).
Steve also used to be a chef and still relishes cooking an baking: lilchef.posterous.com
This document summarizes the production plans for stickers and postcards to promote Backstitch, a sewing store. For stickers, the plan is to create circular stickers featuring the store's logo, website, and a cartoon bobbin. 350 stickers will cost £15 to print. For postcards, the plan is to create A5 postcards with the store's information, logo, and photos on the front and back. 250 postcards will cost £87.69 to print. The total budget for the graphic design, printing, and distribution is £524.69. The launch date for the marketing campaign using the stickers and postcards is March 3rd, 2015.
Simon Creedy is a graphic designer based in Sydney, Australia who has extensive experience in branding, website design, and print graphics. He offers logo design, branding, print materials, web design, and other graphic design services. Creedy aims to build strong client relationships through clear communication and ensuring client needs are met. His goal is to help businesses look their best through high-quality, custom graphic design work.
This document summarizes an internship at Quartier DeLuxe, an online shop for women's designer clothing. The internship involved assisting with distribution, marketing, customer service, photography, and writing blog posts and newsletters. The best parts of the internship were working with a young and innovative team in a friendly atmosphere, learning about trends before customers, and gaining responsibility. Through this internship, the author learned how to handle customer complaints, about the advantages and disadvantages of small companies, and became more confident and interested in a fashion career.
A small taster of some recent, and not so recent work including a new web site for The Shop at Bluebbird. A branding, identity and web site for Upping Your Elvis; a site to represent the motivational speaker Chris Baréz-Brown. An interrim web site for RedDot Clothing as well as many other juicy bits of work.
Up Close and Personal with the Design Shop GirlsBrian Campbell
- Amanda Minuk and Debbie Golub met while working at an architecture firm and developed a strong creative partnership and chemistry. They decided to start their own business, The Design Shop, together.
- The Design Shop is a full-service interior design firm with Amanda, Debbie, and two other designers. They work as a collaborative team on residential and commercial design projects.
- Amanda and Debbie balance each other with different strengths - Amanda focuses on details first while Debbie sees the big picture. They have grown their business successfully while maintaining a work-life balance.
The document is a business plan for an online store called Style Galore that will serve as a platform to help up-and-coming fashion designers sell their unique clothing and accessory designs. The business will connect designers, who focus on design and production, with customers by managing the marketing, sales and distribution of the designers' products through an e-commerce website. The plan outlines the services offered to designers, production and sales processes, goals to differentiate the business from competitors and create an international brand, and potential future developments.
The document discusses failing and creating original work. It references a quote from Sir Ken Robinson stating that if you are not prepared to fail, you will never create anything original. The quote is from Robinson's book "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything."
Established in 2000 by Steve Price, Plan-B Studio is a creative agency with global experience, consisting of a core studio team (Steve) and an extended network of talent.
Steve believes his job is not to preach to clients about what his role is but to learn as much as possible about you, your company and your business model. That way the resulting creative work you pay me to do is based on informed attributes rather than desires to make pretty shapes.
There is no need for mystery, barriers or illusions between designer and client. A project starts with a discussion which, in theory, should never end. Ultimately, for Steve, it is about working with people who are equally passionate, driven and brilliant at what they do.
Steve once said that ‘Just as behind every man there is a great woman, so too is a great idea behind every design.’ (he wasn’t drunk).
Every project is different and is approached with a blank page, a sharpened pencil and begins with
a discussion.
I have spent the last ten years building not just a design consultancy, but a network of passionate, creative and innovative peers across all media. The industry that we work in has evolved and very rarely do you find one agency that has all the relevant skills that is so often required for most projects. Those that say they do, are either lying, or not lying; mostly lying though.
Steve is a visiting lecturer at the Arts Academy Bergen, Hyper Island, Central Saint Martins, Cardiff University, LCC, Nottingham Trent University, Winchester Art School and KBU in Kuala Lumpur. As well as recently awarded an Associate-Professorship from the Arts Academy in Bergen (KHiB).
Steve also used to be a chef and still relishes cooking an baking: lilchef.posterous.com
This document summarizes the production plans for stickers and postcards to promote Backstitch, a sewing store. For stickers, the plan is to create circular stickers featuring the store's logo, website, and a cartoon bobbin. 350 stickers will cost £15 to print. For postcards, the plan is to create A5 postcards with the store's information, logo, and photos on the front and back. 250 postcards will cost £87.69 to print. The total budget for the graphic design, printing, and distribution is £524.69. The launch date for the marketing campaign using the stickers and postcards is March 3rd, 2015.
Simon Creedy is a graphic designer based in Sydney, Australia who has extensive experience in branding, website design, and print graphics. He offers logo design, branding, print materials, web design, and other graphic design services. Creedy aims to build strong client relationships through clear communication and ensuring client needs are met. His goal is to help businesses look their best through high-quality, custom graphic design work.
This document summarizes an internship at Quartier DeLuxe, an online shop for women's designer clothing. The internship involved assisting with distribution, marketing, customer service, photography, and writing blog posts and newsletters. The best parts of the internship were working with a young and innovative team in a friendly atmosphere, learning about trends before customers, and gaining responsibility. Through this internship, the author learned how to handle customer complaints, about the advantages and disadvantages of small companies, and became more confident and interested in a fashion career.
A small taster of some recent, and not so recent work including a new web site for The Shop at Bluebbird. A branding, identity and web site for Upping Your Elvis; a site to represent the motivational speaker Chris Baréz-Brown. An interrim web site for RedDot Clothing as well as many other juicy bits of work.
Up Close and Personal with the Design Shop GirlsBrian Campbell
- Amanda Minuk and Debbie Golub met while working at an architecture firm and developed a strong creative partnership and chemistry. They decided to start their own business, The Design Shop, together.
- The Design Shop is a full-service interior design firm with Amanda, Debbie, and two other designers. They work as a collaborative team on residential and commercial design projects.
- Amanda and Debbie balance each other with different strengths - Amanda focuses on details first while Debbie sees the big picture. They have grown their business successfully while maintaining a work-life balance.
Neil Everette led the product design for Red Hat Marketplace, which aimed to create a software store where developers could discover, purchase, and deploy applications to any cloud with just a few clicks. Everette created an initial story map and wireframes to plan the user experience. He then worked with partners to develop a product demo for IBM leadership that secured approval and funding for the project. The marketplace aimed to help IBM compete in the multi-cloud market by enabling applications to be built once and deployed anywhere.
ED Creations Design Studio is an independent creative design agency based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. They bring together experience and skills to form a small, hardworking team that produces work that is interesting, beautiful, and effective. Their strengths include branding, print design, packaging, photography, and digital media. They aim to provide a consistent, effective service through intelligent design and full immersion in their clients' expertise. The studio was founded in 2009 by Eranga Wimalasuriya and focuses on developing creative solutions and building relationships with loyal clients.
This document contains examples of graphic design work by David Gillentine for various clients. It includes brochures, signage, packaging, and website designs created for companies like GES, Bridge Recruitment, Plantation, Countrywide Estate Agents, IKEA, and others. The designs showcase Gillentine's skills in logo design, branding, layout, and preparing graphics for different file types and formats.
The document provides an overview of an advertising agency called aMuseInk, outlining their values of using creativity to inspire brands, showcasing their team and services which include design, photography, and web development, and emphasizing their focus on clear communication and understanding clients' needs and goals.
Owning the Interaction in Dynamic Environmentsguestf4f7a4b38
1. The document discusses a presentation about owning user interactions in dynamic online environments. As the internet becomes more interactive, designers must apply user-centered approaches to all interactions.
2. The presentation introduces a method for describing dynamic user interactions using storyboards, wireframes, and key frames. This provides a clear way to explain how interactions should work.
3. Lo-fi techniques like sketching are found to be better than polished wireframes at engaging audiences and assessing designs early in the development process. The ability to draw is a learnable skill, not innate talent, and can help reduce risks before significant development work.
Natascha Wilson has 12 years of experience in digital design, illustration, and art direction. She provides services in illustration, design, art direction, information architecture, and digital strategy. Her portfolio includes work for brands such as Bayer, Jameson, Boots, Kiwi, and Tabasco, where she has led creative teams and projects involving websites, emails, banners, and branding. She is always interested in learning new skills and challenging herself professionally.
Digital Printing in an Electronic World (and how to overcome the challenges)Unisource Worldwide, Inc.
Since Digital Printing became a viable solution in the past decade, there has been a lot of dialogue regarding what digital printing technology CAN do… but there has been very little information available on what challenges you may face when using this format and how to address them.
This presentation will give you the tools you need for successful digital printing.
Suggestions for rudimentray cool business card systemsdigicraft1
Short run printing services grant for a smaller number of
printed materials for start-up budgets.
The purpose of advertising is to
assure the target audience that the company is viable
and successful. Whether or not you would like a poster
in full color or quick runs of brochures and flyers,
there's a top high-quality printing accessible.
CDP provides presentation products to help companies make a great first impression and enhance their market presence. They offer a wide range of customizable products, such as brochures, cards, folders, books, and displays. CDP works closely with clients to understand their needs and brand style in order to design presentation solutions that will positively represent them. Their full-service approach includes artwork design, samples, and logistics to ensure projects are delivered successfully.
Nulu Media provides top tier presentation services and graphic design! We are experts in creating clear engaging designs, specializing in turning complex ideas into easy to comprehend visuals. This sample pitchbook has all the information you need to know about the company and some sample slide layouts.
Significance Of Embroidery Digitizing Agencies For Print On Demand CompaniesCre8iveskill
In today's digital era, embroidery digitizing agencies play an important role for print on demand companies with their Cost effective, Time Saving & Enhance Operational Efficiency & Superior Technical knowledge and skills. With Cre8iveSkill's article know more about the significance of embroidery digitizing agencies for print on demand companies from a growth perspective
Rock Paper Scissors - Design Position AgreementAmanda Sutt
Rock Paper Scissors is a creative agency that has been in business since 1986. They provide branding, web development, and marketing services to help clients grow their businesses. The agency aims to build long-term partnerships with clients and help them increase their visibility and profits through creative solutions. They also focus on continual learning and growth for themselves and their clients.
This document summarizes the services of an international digital agency. They provide full-service digital marketing solutions including strategy, creative design, digital asset production, social media management, and more. They have offices across Europe and a team of over 60 experts. Their goal is to help clients by guiding people along customized journeys from awareness to purchase using integrated digital and traditional marketing channels.
Ascesis playbook - everything you want to know about AscesisAscesis
Ascesis Media is a digital marketing agency that offers services such as website development, graphic design, digital marketing, and video production. They use an agile, objective-based development process focused on continuous feedback and iteration. Clients are involved throughout the process and work closely with Ascesis' team to achieve their goals in a flexible manner. Ascesis aims to form partnerships with clients and help them succeed through innovative digital strategies.
The document provides information about Steve Tarry, including his contact details and experience as a creative director and digital designer with over 13 years of experience working with major clients such as the BBC, Barclays, and BMW. It outlines his roles and responsibilities in creative direction, design, conceptualization, content writing, and video production. His skills and education are also summarized, along with details about his current work pursuing a Master's degree in printmaking.
Started in 2015, we are a DESIGN DEVELOPMENT AND 3D PRINTING service bureau based in Pune, India specializing in high quality PROJECT DEVELOPMENT of your 3D models produced at super competitive prices.
SKYE SANT Finding a Job Project Strengths Assessment My.docxMARRY7
SKYE SANT
Finding a Job Project:
Strengths Assessment
My strongest trait that I can bring to any business is my ability to collaborate. I
actively search for touchstones with the people within my working sphere
despite traditional differences that might separate collaborators working
toward a common goal. This will allow me to succeed in what I believe has
become an increasingly team-based business model. I communicate clearly
and as shown through my work as chairwoman of the University of
Colorado’s student government Public Relations department I am selfmotivated,
responsible, and I am a leader who consciously forges strong
relationships with a wide variety of people. I am equally at home speaking at
conferences, classes, seminars or before government legislatures.
Secondly I have a practiced creativity. I am innately a creative person but I
believe that, like a second language, without practicing my creativity I will not
be able to keep current with my contemporaries or expand my own vision. I
routinely produce and show my artwork in galleries in Denver and I am an
active performing artist. As the owner of a small digital design business I
innovate, explore, and use all the tools available to me - in many cases this
includes traditional forms and methods of art. I am well versed in the
sculpture of wood, metals and mixed media as well as traditional handdeveloped
photographic processes. I delight in rendering illustration in a wide
variety of mediums including conte, charcoal, watercolor and pencil.
Finally I am strong in technical skills across a wide range of software
programs. These include print design applications such as Microsoft Office
(Word, Power Point, Excel), Adobe InDesign, Open Office and Adobe
Acrobat, and other graphic applications in the Adobe Suite (Photoshop,
Illustrator). I also know the digital design and movie making applications in the
Adobe Suite CS5; AfterEffects, DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, Bridge, Quicktime,
RealPlayer, DVD Player ,Final Cut Pro, and iMovie. I can edit and create in
sound applications such as Soundtrack Pro and GarageBand and can
program websites using Wordpress, iWeb, FlashCS4 (and ActionScript),
FrontPage, HTML4, and CSS.
�
SKYE SANT
Finding a Job Project:
Job Requirements
TITLES: User Interface Designer; Experience Designer; Interaction Designer;
Information Architect; Social Interaction Designer; Interface Designer; User
Experience Designer; Interactive Systems Engineer and Kinetic User Interface
Designer.
METHODOLOGIES: Candidate should be able to apply various
methodologies of creating user interfaces including design research, research
analysis and concept generation, visualization, wireframing, envisioning
multiple design solutions, and affective processes in interaction design. To a
lesser extent, the candidate may be involved in prototype and usability
testing, implementation and system testing.
FIEL ...
Neil Everette led the product design for Red Hat Marketplace, which aimed to create a software store where developers could discover, purchase, and deploy applications to any cloud with just a few clicks. Everette created an initial story map and wireframes to plan the user experience. He then worked with partners to develop a product demo for IBM leadership that secured approval and funding for the project. The marketplace aimed to help IBM compete in the multi-cloud market by enabling applications to be built once and deployed anywhere.
ED Creations Design Studio is an independent creative design agency based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. They bring together experience and skills to form a small, hardworking team that produces work that is interesting, beautiful, and effective. Their strengths include branding, print design, packaging, photography, and digital media. They aim to provide a consistent, effective service through intelligent design and full immersion in their clients' expertise. The studio was founded in 2009 by Eranga Wimalasuriya and focuses on developing creative solutions and building relationships with loyal clients.
This document contains examples of graphic design work by David Gillentine for various clients. It includes brochures, signage, packaging, and website designs created for companies like GES, Bridge Recruitment, Plantation, Countrywide Estate Agents, IKEA, and others. The designs showcase Gillentine's skills in logo design, branding, layout, and preparing graphics for different file types and formats.
The document provides an overview of an advertising agency called aMuseInk, outlining their values of using creativity to inspire brands, showcasing their team and services which include design, photography, and web development, and emphasizing their focus on clear communication and understanding clients' needs and goals.
Owning the Interaction in Dynamic Environmentsguestf4f7a4b38
1. The document discusses a presentation about owning user interactions in dynamic online environments. As the internet becomes more interactive, designers must apply user-centered approaches to all interactions.
2. The presentation introduces a method for describing dynamic user interactions using storyboards, wireframes, and key frames. This provides a clear way to explain how interactions should work.
3. Lo-fi techniques like sketching are found to be better than polished wireframes at engaging audiences and assessing designs early in the development process. The ability to draw is a learnable skill, not innate talent, and can help reduce risks before significant development work.
Natascha Wilson has 12 years of experience in digital design, illustration, and art direction. She provides services in illustration, design, art direction, information architecture, and digital strategy. Her portfolio includes work for brands such as Bayer, Jameson, Boots, Kiwi, and Tabasco, where she has led creative teams and projects involving websites, emails, banners, and branding. She is always interested in learning new skills and challenging herself professionally.
Digital Printing in an Electronic World (and how to overcome the challenges)Unisource Worldwide, Inc.
Since Digital Printing became a viable solution in the past decade, there has been a lot of dialogue regarding what digital printing technology CAN do… but there has been very little information available on what challenges you may face when using this format and how to address them.
This presentation will give you the tools you need for successful digital printing.
Suggestions for rudimentray cool business card systemsdigicraft1
Short run printing services grant for a smaller number of
printed materials for start-up budgets.
The purpose of advertising is to
assure the target audience that the company is viable
and successful. Whether or not you would like a poster
in full color or quick runs of brochures and flyers,
there's a top high-quality printing accessible.
CDP provides presentation products to help companies make a great first impression and enhance their market presence. They offer a wide range of customizable products, such as brochures, cards, folders, books, and displays. CDP works closely with clients to understand their needs and brand style in order to design presentation solutions that will positively represent them. Their full-service approach includes artwork design, samples, and logistics to ensure projects are delivered successfully.
Nulu Media provides top tier presentation services and graphic design! We are experts in creating clear engaging designs, specializing in turning complex ideas into easy to comprehend visuals. This sample pitchbook has all the information you need to know about the company and some sample slide layouts.
Significance Of Embroidery Digitizing Agencies For Print On Demand CompaniesCre8iveskill
In today's digital era, embroidery digitizing agencies play an important role for print on demand companies with their Cost effective, Time Saving & Enhance Operational Efficiency & Superior Technical knowledge and skills. With Cre8iveSkill's article know more about the significance of embroidery digitizing agencies for print on demand companies from a growth perspective
Rock Paper Scissors - Design Position AgreementAmanda Sutt
Rock Paper Scissors is a creative agency that has been in business since 1986. They provide branding, web development, and marketing services to help clients grow their businesses. The agency aims to build long-term partnerships with clients and help them increase their visibility and profits through creative solutions. They also focus on continual learning and growth for themselves and their clients.
This document summarizes the services of an international digital agency. They provide full-service digital marketing solutions including strategy, creative design, digital asset production, social media management, and more. They have offices across Europe and a team of over 60 experts. Their goal is to help clients by guiding people along customized journeys from awareness to purchase using integrated digital and traditional marketing channels.
Ascesis playbook - everything you want to know about AscesisAscesis
Ascesis Media is a digital marketing agency that offers services such as website development, graphic design, digital marketing, and video production. They use an agile, objective-based development process focused on continuous feedback and iteration. Clients are involved throughout the process and work closely with Ascesis' team to achieve their goals in a flexible manner. Ascesis aims to form partnerships with clients and help them succeed through innovative digital strategies.
The document provides information about Steve Tarry, including his contact details and experience as a creative director and digital designer with over 13 years of experience working with major clients such as the BBC, Barclays, and BMW. It outlines his roles and responsibilities in creative direction, design, conceptualization, content writing, and video production. His skills and education are also summarized, along with details about his current work pursuing a Master's degree in printmaking.
Started in 2015, we are a DESIGN DEVELOPMENT AND 3D PRINTING service bureau based in Pune, India specializing in high quality PROJECT DEVELOPMENT of your 3D models produced at super competitive prices.
SKYE SANT Finding a Job Project Strengths Assessment My.docxMARRY7
SKYE SANT
Finding a Job Project:
Strengths Assessment
My strongest trait that I can bring to any business is my ability to collaborate. I
actively search for touchstones with the people within my working sphere
despite traditional differences that might separate collaborators working
toward a common goal. This will allow me to succeed in what I believe has
become an increasingly team-based business model. I communicate clearly
and as shown through my work as chairwoman of the University of
Colorado’s student government Public Relations department I am selfmotivated,
responsible, and I am a leader who consciously forges strong
relationships with a wide variety of people. I am equally at home speaking at
conferences, classes, seminars or before government legislatures.
Secondly I have a practiced creativity. I am innately a creative person but I
believe that, like a second language, without practicing my creativity I will not
be able to keep current with my contemporaries or expand my own vision. I
routinely produce and show my artwork in galleries in Denver and I am an
active performing artist. As the owner of a small digital design business I
innovate, explore, and use all the tools available to me - in many cases this
includes traditional forms and methods of art. I am well versed in the
sculpture of wood, metals and mixed media as well as traditional handdeveloped
photographic processes. I delight in rendering illustration in a wide
variety of mediums including conte, charcoal, watercolor and pencil.
Finally I am strong in technical skills across a wide range of software
programs. These include print design applications such as Microsoft Office
(Word, Power Point, Excel), Adobe InDesign, Open Office and Adobe
Acrobat, and other graphic applications in the Adobe Suite (Photoshop,
Illustrator). I also know the digital design and movie making applications in the
Adobe Suite CS5; AfterEffects, DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, Bridge, Quicktime,
RealPlayer, DVD Player ,Final Cut Pro, and iMovie. I can edit and create in
sound applications such as Soundtrack Pro and GarageBand and can
program websites using Wordpress, iWeb, FlashCS4 (and ActionScript),
FrontPage, HTML4, and CSS.
�
SKYE SANT
Finding a Job Project:
Job Requirements
TITLES: User Interface Designer; Experience Designer; Interaction Designer;
Information Architect; Social Interaction Designer; Interface Designer; User
Experience Designer; Interactive Systems Engineer and Kinetic User Interface
Designer.
METHODOLOGIES: Candidate should be able to apply various
methodologies of creating user interfaces including design research, research
analysis and concept generation, visualization, wireframing, envisioning
multiple design solutions, and affective processes in interaction design. To a
lesser extent, the candidate may be involved in prototype and usability
testing, implementation and system testing.
FIEL ...
SKYE SANT Finding a Job Project Strengths Assessment My.docx
Magazine article
1. I have been digitising embroidery designs for over twenty seven years. I previously worked for and
managed, what was at the time, the UK's largest digitising house, David Sharp Ltd. I am now
owner and manager of The Motifs Co. Ltd.
I have written various articles for industry magazines and have also been invited to judge the
garment decoration awards at the annual Printwear and Promotion show on three occasions.
My name is Andy Needham and my company is called The Motifs Co Ltd, if you have been in the
embroidery business for a long time then you may know me better from my days at David Sharp
Ltd who at the time were the biggest and most respected embroidery design company in Europe.
If you haven't been in the industry for that length of time then please allow me to give you some
background as to who I am and what I do.
The early years
I began my career in embroidery design over 27 years ago when David Sharp himself interviewed
me as a fresh faced youth eager to work in a creative environment using my drawing skills as, back
then, the actual interpretation of the logos for embroidery was done on a drawing board producing
6x enlarged scale drawings of the logos including every stitch!
I was David’s apprentice for five years which was the usual training time to become a competent
embroidery 'draughtsman' as we were called.
After this apprenticeship I continued to work with David in the 'front office' of the factory which
not only gave me a great insight and experience with face to face customer service but also allowed
me to make some wonderful UK and European contacts.
In the mid nineties I worked closely with a company called Wilcom in the UK, they approached
David Sharp Ltd to evaluate their new range of DOS based digitising systems. I was probably one
of the very first people in Europe to move from drawing table to digitising software similar to that
which is used today.
Going digital.
The years rolled by and technology sped forward towards the digital revolution which brought with
it the more familiar windows based digitising systems we still use today but even in this we were
slightly different to the rest in that I specified that the systems we bought must still have the
drawing tool element. This enabled us to use the same draughtsman techniques on the screen that
we had always used on the drawing table. The reason for this was the attention to detail and ability
to adjust and re-draw the image that enabled us to create a design that once the 'push and pull' of
embroidery had occurred in the sew out of the logo the design would look most like the original
artwork. This gave us the edge (and still does!) over the competition who either simply work over
the top of the image without making the necessary adjustments or even worse but sadly more
widespread these days, use vector images which they then allow the software to process.
This 'auto-stitching' of a design can lead to rather poor results, not only in the look of the finished
logo but also in the way the design behaves on the machine in the form of unnecessary running
around, extra thread cuts and colour changes which all add up to extra production time that costs
money! These days it's easy to overlook that aspect of a quality embroidery design in favour of a
cheap set up price but I would suggest that is a false economy.
In time I was made head of the digitising department and pushed forward with re-training all our
draughtsmen to operate the Wilcom systems. By the time the millennium rolled round we were at
the point where we had laid down our pencils for good and firmly grasped the mouse and keyboard
as our creative tools. The dawn of the new millennium not only saw the retirement of David Sharp
but my appointment as Managing Director of the company.
2. I continued in this roll until 2004 when I decided the natural progression of things meant that I
should start my own digitising company and The Motifs Co. Ltd was born.
Since it's founding 12 years ago the company has continued to specialise in embroidery digitising
and I have made it a priority to use the same traditional techniques together with modern software
to ensure our logos are the very best available in terms of interpretation, efficient production and the
finished look on the garment. Our customers not only in the UK but in Europe, Scandinavia and
worldwide appreciate they are getting a service which is a cut above that offered elsewhere.
Although we will never be the cheapest available I believe we can compete in terms of 'value for
money', attention to detail and quality of service.
So what about the future?
I'm saddened to see the industry that I have devoted my working life to cheapened and de valued by
internet based vector digitising and it is my belief that if people like myself with a history in the
area and real knowledge of the subject don't speak out to inform our customer base then this poor
quality option will be seen as the 'norm' and the quality digitising companies will be priced out.
The difference in price between what I see as the two types of digitising is down to the time it takes
to produce a design and also the geographical economic differences.
I say a design but that doesn’t mean that all designs are to the same standard.
The danger is that ill-informed customers see digitising as a consumable that is the same from
where ever they get it and the only difference is the price.
In my opinion vector digitising is no substitute for an experienced embroidery digitiser who is able
to use his or her judgement to adjust and alter the image to achieve an efficient embroidery that
looks great on the fabric it is intended for. This way of working takes longer and therefore costs
more but it does result in a much better product.
I personally favour a pricing structure that allows for embroidery set ups to be comparable with that
of screen printing, which seems to have had a constant and accepted set-up charge for many years,
and I feel that should been seen as fair and realistic.
I am optimistic for the future as I know that quality will always win through and together with a
realistic and competitive pricing structure and the ability to effectively demonstrate a difference
between different levels of service and quality the the future can be bright for quality digitising
services but only if we in the know speak up!