Artwork Setup for Custom Polo Shirts
By The Velocity Wear Team
Send vector artwork — an AI, EPS, PDF or SVG file with live shapes rather than a picture of them. If all you have is an image, send the largest and cleanest version you own and say so. Artwork is the single most common reason an order sits still, because the 10 to 15 working day production window only starts once artwork is approved.
What makes a file usable?
Scalability and separation. A vector file can be enlarged to any size without softening and its colours can be pulled apart into individual elements, which is what both screen preparation and embroidery digitising need. A logo lifted from a website is typically a few hundred pixels wide, already compressed, and sitting on a background that has to be cut away by hand. That work is possible and we do it, but it takes time and the result is never better than the file it came from.
What should you send alongside the file?
- The position: left chest, sleeve, back yoke, or a combination, with a rough size in centimetres.
- The colour references you need matched, if a brand guideline applies.
- The garment colour you intend to print or stitch onto, because artwork behaves differently on dark cloth.
- Any lettering as text you can also send separately, in case it has to be reset for legibility.
- Your size split and, if the shirts are personalised, the name list.
What happens to your logo before it is made?
For embroidery it is digitised: someone rebuilds the mark as stitch paths, deciding direction, density and the order in which areas are filled, then stitches it out on the real fabric and adjusts. For screen printing it is separated into one film per colour, trapped so the colours meet cleanly, and burned onto screens. For DTF it is prepared as a full-colour file with a white underbase where the cloth is dark. In every case your artwork is rebuilt rather than simply placed, which is why approval exists and why a late change is expensive in time.
What gets changed, and why?
Detail that the method cannot physically hold. Hairlines vanish under a needle, small counters in letters fill in, and a gradient that looks smooth on screen bands when it is separated into spot colours. We will come back with a proposed adjustment rather than making one silently: usually thickening a line, enlarging or resetting type, or reducing a colour count. If the mark is a registered brand asset that cannot be altered, say so early — that usually points the job towards printing rather than embroidery, and the comparison runs in print or embroider wholesale polo shirts.
How do you approve without wasting a week?
Name one person who signs off, and give them everything at once: the visual, the position, the size and the colour references. Approval loops go wrong when three people each see a different version. If the artwork is complex or the colours are critical, approve on a £150 sample rather than a screen mockup — it is credited against the bulk order, so on a job you proceed with it costs nothing. Submission details sit alongside the garment options on the wholesale polo shirts page and the pricing page.
How many positions should a first order carry?
One, in most cases. A left-chest mark is the position a polo was designed around, it survives everything, and it is what people expect on a smart shirt. Add a second position when it does a job the first cannot: a back yoke line so a name is readable across a room, or a sleeve badge for a role or a sponsor. Each position is its own setup, so three positions on a fifty-piece run spreads three lots of setup over very few shirts and the per-piece figure climbs quickly.
Decide positions before the artwork is approved rather than after. Moving a mark once files are prepared means redoing part of that preparation, and on a tight schedule it is the change most likely to cost you the delivery date.
