Embroidery 

Forget about needlework or the embroidery your grandma used to do.

Things have moved on and quite dramatically so for today virtually all embroidered business, promotional and advertising gifts are the result of a quite fast automated process.

It's all down to a device called a  jacquard after a Frenchman named Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) who pioneered the processing of a group of perforated coded cards attached to a loom.

However, punched cards are long gone and in their place is the ubiquitous computer disc still known in the trade as a jacquard.

But it still does the same job and tells the weaving loom what to do and how many colours to use on Sports Shirts, Soccer and Rugby Shirts,   Jackets,   Overalls,  Polos,  Caps, Sweats, Tees and Company Uniforms.

Before sponsorship disfigured professional sports shirts it was normal practice to have a distinguishing logo on the breast pocket or cap.

Today money has spoken and very loudly too on sports apparel. Now virtually all professional teams and quite often amateur ones have an array of logos...and none more so  than Grand Prix motor racing; a veritable walking billboard. 

Even shorts, trousers and latterly socks as well as shoes and boots are emblazoned with logos. In fact, acting as a walking billboard is so common that children and youngsters are not interested in a product unless it sports the latest designer logo. And yet, once upon a time an unemployed man had to be paid to carry a billboard...we certainly live in a strange world where people pay through the nose to achieve the same end.

All this is taken a stage further by some companies who have a thriving business framing sports shirts and other embroidered memorabilia.

If you are buying business gifts it will be helpful if you know about digital printing, die stamping, embroidery, engraving, etching, off-set ltho, tampo (pad printing), screen printing, sublimation printing, transfer printing and weaving.