A peek at what it is like to work in an embroidery design company
Tell us a little about OESD and the machine embroidery/digitizing industry
A provider of high quality designs and digitizing products for the embroidery enthusiast, OESD has been in the embroidery digitizing business for over 30 years. The team at OESD are leaders in innovative and quality designs and we maintain this quality by staying ahead of the game by utilizing new embroidery techniques as well as utilizing what we have at our disposal to really push the limits in embroidery. All the designs that we have are sewn by our digitizers which makes it easy to avoid errors before publication. By not outsourcing this process, we ensure every design meets a very high standard.
Is there anything that makes OESD different from other digitizing companies in the industry?
OESD, likes to ensure that there isn’t too much back and forth (it gets a little messy this way), so we give our digitizers full control of the creation of their own designs. We also have a fantastic system of quality control that each design has to go through. Each digitizer sews and edits multiple times if needed. Then the sew-outs are verified for thread colors, descriptions, thread traps and sewing order. We follow the same control measures we have always used but we also regularly add newer ones to keep up with the changing software, machines and industry and in general.
What is really great and unique about OESD is that every design produced is a team effort. Because everyone is here in one place, the artists and digitizers are free to communicate with each other as much as they need to. Many of the OESD staff have worked for the company for over 10 years and there are many who have worked with OESD since its inception! The company works fantastically together and it really shows through the results and the satisfied testimonials.
What is the creative process like at OESD?
The creative process at OESD is heavily reliant on inspiration and motivation, which changes every single day, as well as an established procedure that we will always perform when digitizing designs. Inspiration comes from all around us, on television, in magazines, and shopping. It’s all about taking the trends at the time and adding our OESD flair by thinking outside the box and always trying to improve our daily motivations. Take a look at one of the examples below…
- The artist sketches the design, which then needs to get approved.
- Threads are pulled for the design and/or collection
- The digitizer plans what layers and paths to digitize first, mapping out an order of how to proceed with digitizing
- The digitizer will blend the appropriate thread shades in the design or change threads if original colors don’t work
- The digitizer will then angle the fills to produce a 3D look. Fills can be angled horizontally or vertically. Horizontal fills sit back and vertical fills can appear raised
- The design gets verified and changes are made if necessary then everything (descriptions, thread traps, knots and embroidery fluidity) are checked
- The collective information is inserted into a database, formats are created and from there the thread charts are made and uploaded to the appropriate locations, and then finally sent to the embroideryonline.com website for sale
Do you have any insider advice for beginners or people aspiring to get into the embroidery and digitizing?
Each person is different and the way they will approach each of their tasks is different. However something that I’ve really learnt as a part of my career is to stop being afraid to experiment, as experimentation is the key to finding out special tricks that others might overlook. Experimentation is also the best way to really get creative, no matter how many times you “fail”; I find that you always wind up getting something out of it, whether it’s a new idea, skill or even a great final product!
As far as tricks go, I would absolutely suggest learning your hotkeys, this will not only save you time but also be the first step in learning various shortcuts and tricks easily, this puts you on the path to learning more at a faster pace. A bit of advice is that certain ‘tricks’ start to become second nature and don’t even seem that special anymore! That’s when you know you’re well on your way to creating your own unique designs!
OESD is one of our Hatch design partners. They have provided us with a few free designs that are ready for you to download and stitch out.
