Sending Us Your Design: Exactly What to Include
By The Velocity Wear Team
The single biggest source of delay between a brand deciding to produce something and production actually starting is not manufacturing capacity. It is a back-and-forth about artwork — a file at the wrong resolution, a colour described as "dark green", a placement implied by a mockup nobody measured. All of it is avoidable, and the list is short.
The artwork itself
- Vector where possible — AI, EPS or PDF with the text converted to outlines. Vector scales to any size without losing an edge, and for screen printing and embroidery it is what the process actually wants.
- If the artwork is raster, send it at final print size at 300 DPI or better, with a transparent background where the design is not a full rectangle. A 600-pixel logo enlarged to 30cm across will look exactly as bad as that sounds.
- The original layered file if you have it. It is far easier to adjust a design at source than to reconstruct it from a flattened image.
- Every element of the design, not just the front. Back prints, sleeve prints, and anything on a hood or pocket each need their own file.
The garment and the colour
Say which product, which colour, and which sizes. Garment colour in particular changes both the quote and the result — light ink on a dark garment needs an underbase, which is an extra screen and an extra pass, and a design that looks right on white can disappear on navy.
For the artwork colours, give Pantone references rather than descriptions. "Dark green" covers an enormous range and two people will not picture the same one. A Pantone number is unambiguous and it is the difference between approving a sample and arguing about one.
Placement, in measurements
A mockup shows intent. A measurement is an instruction. Give the width of the print and the distance from a fixed reference point — normally centimetres down from the high point of the shoulder — plus whether it is centred or offset and by how much.
Two numbers per placement is enough, and it removes the most common reason a delivered garment does not match the mockup in somebody's head.
The label and packaging content
This is the part brands forget, and it is the one that cannot be fixed afterwards, because labels are manufactured during the run rather than sewn in later.
Send the neck label artwork and the compliance content together: fibre composition, care instructions, country of origin, and your company identity. For Canada that composition has to be in English and French, with a dealer identity or CA number. For the US you need country of origin, mandatory care instructions and a company name or RN. In the UK the composition is the core requirement. If you are selling in more than one of those, one label satisfying all of them is normal and costs no more.
The quantities
Quantity per design and the split across sizes. Our minimum is 20 pieces per design with mixed sizes included, so a first run can carry a realistic curve rather than being forced into one size.
If you genuinely do not know the split, say so and ask — a middle-weighted curve is a sensible default and it is better to start from one than to default to an even spread, which is almost always wrong.
And the date
Tell us when you need it in hand, not when you would like production to start. Production runs 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, before freight, and knowing the real deadline lets us tell you honestly whether it is achievable rather than discovering it is not halfway through.
If the answer is that the date does not work, that is much better information three weeks early than three days late.
