Woven or embroidered... that is the question....
Well it's pretty simple to choose between the two but you just need to know what you're looking for, whether its small & detailed or large & simple.
Embroidered designs have a very classy finish to them and look great but unfortunately embroidered designs can lack a certain level of detail when it’s a very intricate design. The larger the area available to embroider on, the better the design will look, but if it's squashed onto a small badge size it'll look unprofessional. When there’s a simple design on a small area it comes out wonderfully.
(See image 1)
If you’re in need of something small with intricate detail and/or small lettering, then we advise having it woven as it enables all the details to be much more defined. We usually do scouting badges as woven because the text that needs to be included is usually quite small. With woven badges the badge could be any size yet it won't usually affect the design. Instead of threads being stitched into the material (like embroidery) the threads are woven in and are considerably smaller. (See image 2)
The production time for woven badges is usually 3-4 weeks once the artwork has been approved whereas embroidered badges can be produced slightly quicker in 1-3 weeks. If you are looking for badges that can be produced very quickly then printed badges may be the ones you want to go with.
Printed designs are more likely to look exactly like your digital design because it isn’t translated into different coloured threads; because of this it means there’s less production time. Printing is different because your design is printed on top of the material rather than being woven or embroidered into the material. Unlike embroidered or woven, the level of detail in your design doesn't matter. The most crucial part is the quality of the file that you send over to us. The lower the quality, the more pixelated it'll turn out.
Examples
1 2 3
(1)This is an embroidered badge with a diameter of 10cm.
This is a fairly simple design and it has translated into embroidery easily.
(2)This is a woven badge with a diameter of 6cm.
This would not be possible if it were embroidery due to the size and level of detail.
(3)This is a printed badge with the same design and size as the woven one.
This shows the difference in outcome between woven and printed.
Overall, Embroidered and woven designs are much more durable when going through the wash because the thread colours don't fade, whereas printed designs can very slightly fade after multiple wash and wear cycles. And to conclude the answer to 'which one is better?', they're both great it just depends on your design and size requirements.