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When I opened my shop in 1986, stock designs did not exist. With the exception of basic text, all designs had to be digitized and the prices were quite high. A left chest logo with 5000 stitches could easily cost $300.00 or more to have it punched. As a result, many customers chose not to have their logo digitized and opted for simple keyboard lettering instead. (The first keyboard lettering systems were developed as part of the machine, rather than a software program installed on a computer and the number of fonts was quite limited.)
But then came stock designs and the whole industry changed forever. Suddenly embroiderers could create a small library of usable designs, ready to sew, at a reasonable price. Rather than $300.00 for a single design, punchers realized that the same design could be sold to lots of people, thus they were willing to drop the price to a much lower level. In the long run, they made more money by mass producing the design, rather than just selling it once. This opened the doors for embroiderers as many of their customers didn’t have a true logo to begin with. By merging an image with keyboard lettering, the embroiderer could create a simple design for the customer at a fraction of the cost for custom digitizing. In addition it could be done while the customer waited, rather having to wait several days for the design to be digitized. This allowed for instant stitch counts and price quotes.
In the beginning, there were only a few stock design companies and their offerings were limited, but usually top quality. Over the past 20 years, many new companies have entered the stock design trade and now there are literally hundreds of thousands of designs available for embroiderers to choose from.
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| A Jimmy Lamb design for sale on embroiderydesigns.com |
Stock designs provide a very useful sales tool. Whenever you approach a potential new customer, you can easily create something interesting and unique to show them. For example, if you were going to try and sell tourist or souvenir designs to a gift shop, you could create some potential design ideas (and sew them out) to show the shop owner. This is a great way to impress the customer and move nearer to making a sale. Even if you can digitize, you will find that in many cases the ideal design is already available as stock image that can be downloaded cheaply and quickly. Why spend a couple of hours digitizing something, if you can pay $25.00 or less and download it in minutes?
Though stock designs offer lots of exciting possibilities for embroiderers, especially those who don’t digitize, there are some things to be aware of. First of all, the quality of a design can be affected by the fabric upon which it is sewn. In the case of custom digitizing, the puncher creates the design for a specific fabric, thereby ensuring that it sews properly for the given application. But in the case of a stock design, it is not possible for the digitizer to know what fabric the design will be sewn on. Thus, it’s nearly impossible to guarantee that it will sew well on all fabrics.
Another problem is that embroiderers tend to resize stock designs any way they see fit. Once again, a design is digitized with a certain size in mind. Resizing it may cause a loss of sewing quality. Regardless, embroiderers actively seek designs in an outline file format such as .cnd, so that they can easily resize the design as needed. It should be noted that although most modern commercial software systems can read a .cnd file, they typically change it over to an outline file that is compatible with the internal format code. For example, the Pulse Software system can read a .cnd file, but it automatically converts the file into a .pof or .pxf file which is the internal Pulse outline file format. Much like translating languages (such as Spanish to English) converting embroidery file formats sometimes results in minor problems, such as missing stitches.
Another limitation with stock designs is that there is no guarantee the digitizer is qualified. Anyone can create a website and/or catalog and start selling stock designs. The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of inexperienced digitizers who are selling inferior designs. Thus, the embroiderer needs to be cautious in their choices. Find out if the stock design company offers any free designs for testing purposes.
An additional area of concern with stock designs is that they are many times used illegally. Stock designs are governed by the copyright laws of the United States and many other countries. When you purchase a stock design you don’t actually own it, rather you are buying a license to use it. As per most licensing agreements, you can reproduce the design via embroidery as much as you want, during your normal course of business operations. However, you are not entitled to sell, trade, swap, loan or give the electronic design file to any other person. Doing so is illegal! There is one exception to this. If you are selling your business as a complete unit, most stock design companies will allow you to include the designs that you legally purchased, provided the new owner registers the change in ownership. Bottom line, be sure to read the licensing agreement that comes with every stock design you purchase.
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