# Identifying embroidery fonts from graphic



## inkdraggeront (Apr 11, 2016)

Hi All 
Long time screen printer but newbie to embroidery. Customer has ordered some embroidered items and needs me to match artwork from previous supplier order. I received my first stitch-out sample of the attached graphic from my digitizer, but the logos are no where near similar. The digitizer tells me they need to know the name of the font used in the lettering of the graphic "Campus Crew".

I created it using Adobe's Myriad Pro OTF font in Illustrator, but had to modify the graphic to get the 'w' to match the previous year sample. 

Can anyone identify the embroidery font used in this graphic? Is there an online source that helps identify the name of embroidery fonts? I'm willing to purchase the embroidery font if I can locate it somewhere online. Any suggestions?


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## Twisted Grafix (Oct 5, 2016)

If the font you used and modified looked correct, then convert all the letters to curves and the digitizer should be able to get a stitch file to you that looks correct. If letters aren't converted in a vector file, then the opening program may substitute a font in it's place and that may be the issue at hand. It may be faster to go this route than to spend a ton of time finding a font to match...especially if you've already spent time to manipulate some characters to match up.


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## inkdraggeront (Apr 11, 2016)

Thanks 
Yes, I totally recreated the graphic in illustrator, converted the font to curves and modified the w to match the embroidered sample. The local shop who is going to do the embroidery for me asked for a jpeg file so they could send it out to their digitizer. What I got back for the stitch out sample looked similar, but the thread patterns looked like they ran left to right and up and down (not following the contours of the letters as in the attached sample). I'm not sure if I'm missing something in the messages between the emboiderer and the digitizer, but they tell me the only way they can match the thread patterns on the lettering is if I can give them the name of the embroidery font (not OTF or True Type). I though I was giving them lots of file options (jpeg, AI, EPS, PNG) to work from, but they say they need the embroidery font to be able to get the look that I'm trying to match.


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## Twisted Grafix (Oct 5, 2016)

Interesting.... We also send out files for digitizing, as well as most of our embroidery work. Are they trying to use a running fill stitch pattern instead of a satin stitch? I would send the file to Eagle or somebody that you could deal with directly and get some input from somebody that does it all day. They would be able to address some of the more technical aspects of digitizing the file and may lead you to the reason why it looks so different. I suggest Eagle because we've used them for many years with no issues.


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## tfalk (Apr 3, 2008)

inkdraggeront said:


> What I got back for the stitch out sample looked similar, but the thread patterns looked like they ran left to right and up and down (not following the contours of the letters as in the attached sample).


Classic sign of a 'digitizer' using auto-digitizing instead of digitizing by hand. Cheap but the results are virtually always crap.

It could be a built-in font that came with whatever program the original digitizer used came with - unless you find someone else with the same program and same built-in font, you might be SOL from a font point of view. In any event, any digitzer who has been doing this for more than a few minutes should be able to easily recreate that lettering by hand.

The other problem you will find is sites like whatthefont.com work pretty good for printed images but they don't work worth a crap on embroidery images...


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## mdcorral (Jan 8, 2009)

inkdraggeront said:


> Thanks
> Yes, I totally recreated the graphic in illustrator, converted the font to curves and modified the w to match the embroidered sample. The local shop who is going to do the embroidery for me asked for a jpeg file so they could send it out to their digitizer. What I got back for the stitch out sample looked similar, but the thread patterns looked like they ran left to right and up and down (not following the contours of the letters as in the attached sample). I'm not sure if I'm missing something in the messages between the emboiderer and the digitizer, but they tell me the only way they can match the thread patterns on the lettering is if I can give them the name of the embroidery font (not OTF or True Type). I though I was giving them lots of file options (jpeg, AI, EPS, PNG) to work from, but they say they need the embroidery font to be able to get the look that I'm trying to match.


Try this website: https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/freeembroideryfonts.aspx... or look for an online matching of font vis-a-vis the embroidery styles


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## and3008 (Apr 16, 2012)

That's why I send fonts to my digitizer, so she can reproduce the font. She doesn't need to know what the font is. I've never heard of needing to know what style font before digitizing...weird.


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## webtrekker (Jan 28, 2018)

and3008 said:


> That's why I send fonts to my digitizer, so she can reproduce the font. She doesn't need to know what the font is. I've never heard of needing to know what style font before digitizing...weird.


So what would you do when asked to embroider a design with a particular style of text but different words or letters?


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## Coeurdelion (Mar 27, 2009)

That's odd - if I have a strange font, I can work with an ai file where the font has been changed into outlines - it's a bit more laborious than being able to input a font but it has always given good results.


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## digidana (Jun 20, 2016)

totally agree with tfalk and and3008. if your 'digitizer' says the need a font name, or a vector file, they aren't digitizing. they're using keyboard lettering and auto digitizing. both of which pretty much suck. i've worked from hand drawings on napkins and candy wrappers. there is no reason in the world that a digitizer should need to know the name of the font. i wouldn't give 10 cents for a design that was 'auto digitized'....and most keyboard lettering isn't much better.


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## digidana (Jun 20, 2016)

webtrekker said:


> So what would you do when asked to embroider a design with a particular style of text but different words or letters?


if its lettering that has been created from scratch by the digitizer, they would most likely require artwork for the new words/letters. sometimes i've been able to fudge it. like, if we did a design with the date '2016' in a particular font i can usually create a '2018' by eyeballing it.


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## digidana (Jun 20, 2016)

inkdraggeront said:


> Thanks
> Yes, I totally recreated the graphic in illustrator, converted the font to curves and modified the w to match the embroidered sample. The local shop who is going to do the embroidery for me asked for a jpeg file so they could send it out to their digitizer. What I got back for the stitch out sample looked similar, but the thread patterns looked like they ran left to right and up and down (not following the contours of the letters as in the attached sample). I'm not sure if I'm missing something in the messages between the emboiderer and the digitizer, but they tell me the only way they can match the thread patterns on the lettering is if I can give them the name of the embroidery font (not OTF or True Type). I though I was giving them lots of file options (jpeg, AI, EPS, PNG) to work from, but they say they need the embroidery font to be able to get the look that I'm trying to match.


so it sounds like they did the lettering as a fill stitch? run away, fast. its not a 'digitized' file. you should have been able to send the picture you posted to a digitizer and you should get back something that looks nearly exact. you shouldn't have to mess with illustrator or anything else. a real digitizer can work from a jpg...


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## inkdraggeront (Apr 11, 2016)

Update on how things turned out... Digitizer was able to duplicate the original logo using a jpeg photo and an EPS version of the artwork that I had recreated (fonts converted to curves). Wondering if this was a bit of a miscommunication between the embroiderer, digitizer and reseller (me). Kinda frustrating since I lost lotttts of time trying to locate font file which was never required. Oh well, chalk another experience up to the learning process. Thanks for all the input and feedback. Great forum!!


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