Many people believe that embroidered patches are the only way to go and don’t consider custom woven patches. While embroidery is and will probably always remain the industry standard for patches, there is another option.
Custom woven patches can be used in almost every way embroidered patches can. Using thinner threads that are woven together instead of embroidered onto a fabric, they are ideal when a design is too detailed or complex to be achieved with the embroidery process.
Woven patches are made of thread only, stitched in a continuous design and achieve finer detail in both the design and text of the patch. This results in a patch that has a smooth appearance with no raised texture.
It is also a great way to achieve photographic realism. Human faces, landscapes, and small text can be reproduced on smaller sized patches in a way only possible on large embroidered patches.
On a standard embroidered patch, in order for the lettering even to be legible, the lettering must be the equivalent of 10 points in a standard word processing program. For the lettering to be clean, it must be a minimum of 14 points.
On a standard woven patch, for lettering to be legible, it must be the equivalent of 8 points. For the lettering to be clean, it must be a minimum of 10 points. There is also no drag stitching (chain stitching) between letters of any size.
What is more, the pricing is not much different from embroidered patches.