Branded apparel is probably the most popular PROMO item. Whether it’s logoed apparel for your company or a great event souvenir t-shirt, it’s great for being noticed, raising money, or helping memorialize experiences.

But did you know that there are a variety of ways your design can be printed on apparel and other soft goods? Screen print, transfers, sublimation, digital printing, embroidery, and more can make picking the right method for your project a bit overwhelming.

The best method for your project depends on the item being decorated and the design. Because decoration methods can use heat, pressure, hooping, framing, stitching or a combination of these, the specific material, density, construction (zippers, pockets, seams) and thickness is an important consideration when selecting a decoration method. 

The number of colours and complexity of the design will also guide your decision. Certain methods require the ability to “separate” solid colours in your design (no shades or gradients) and each specific colour in the design needs to be set up, so they are not cost effective for multi-colour designs. Designs with fine details or small text are difficult to reproduce with certain methods.

The options available are also guided by the size of the order, how quickly you need them and your pricing goal. Are you willing to adjust the design to reduce the cost or are you looking for the best way to showcase your design as it is?

Here's a quick summary to help guide you:

Now, let's take a look at the different methods.

Screen Printing

Probably one of the oldest decoration methods, you may have heard it referred to as Silk Screen because the screens used to be made from silk. Essentially, a screen is made for each colour in the design. The screen is a stencil through which the ink is pressed. Like digital printing, on dark fabrics, a layer of white is printed first and then each screen adds a colour until the full design is complete, then the garment goes through a dryer to ensure all the ink is dry. 

Screen printing tends to work best for larger quantity orders with a low number of colours and locations being printed. This is because each location printed needs a screen created for each colour, so if you have two 4-colour designs, eight screens have to be created (actually 10 because they need the under-layer screen as well) in order to print the shirt. Each additional colour and location also add time to print and dry each shirt.

Because of the need to separate out each colour, it also requires vectored artwork (so, no, not a picture or .jpg file) This means that this is not a great decoration method for pictures or images that have shades or colour gradients.

It is a popular choice for high quantity orders because of the vibrant, durable design at an economical price. It can also be done on the greatest variety of fabrics.

If you have a minute (literally a minute) and want to see the screen printing process, check out this video.  

Normal Timeline:  3-5 weeks

Pros of Screen Printing

þ  Vibrant colours.

þ  Long lasting colour.

þ  Economical for large orders, with limited number of colours in the design.

Cons of Screen Printing

ý  Not economical for smaller quantities and multicolour designs (best with 1-3 colour designs, 24+ pieces).

ý  Works with solid colours, can’t capture gradients or shades of colour like other methods.

ý  Artwork size and placement can be limited by the frames and screens used in the process.

CAD Cut Vinyl

One of the most popular decoration methods for small orders, is CAD cut vinyl – one colour or full colour. The difference is that with one colour vinyl, the design is “cut” from a full sheet of vinyl in the colour selected.  With full colour vinyl, the design must be printed on the vinyl, “cut” from the full sheet and then applied to a carrier to be applied to the garment. 

The design is then “weeded” to remove all of the vinyl that is not part of the design and then pressed on the garment with a combination of heat and pressure. Intricate designs with small text or details are not suggested because of the time it takes to weed the design and the chance that parts of the design “move” during this process. You can watch this 1 minute video to see how a design is weeded.   

Once you have your design weeded, it is applied to the garment with a combination of heat and pressure. Because of the heat, this method won’t work with all fabrics as it can damage heat-sensitive fabrics or leave heat/pressure marks on the garment.

Want to see the process from cutting right to pressing? Check out this 6 minute video.

This method is a great solution for smaller orders but because of the labour required to cut, weed and press each logo, it does not work well with larger orders. Unlike other methods that become more efficient when done in larger quantities or where the process is automated or can be done in batches, CAD cut vinyl is done one a time.

Normal Timeline: 1-2 weeks (but highly dependent on quantity)

Pros of CAD Cut Vinyl

þ  Done in-house, faster turnaround. *For SMALL orders.

þ  Most economical method for small orders.

þ  Long lasting colour.

þ  Great for cotton and most cotton/polyester blends.

þ  Can print images and full colour designs.

Cons of CAD Cut Vinyl

ý  Not for large orders as the process isn’t scalable/automated.

ý  Not for intricate designs, small text or details.

ý  Artwork size and placement can be limited by the size of the press.

ý  Can not be used on heat or pressure sensitive fabrics.

Pre-Printed Transfers

One of the ways we can do larger orders with transfers is to get pre-printed transfers. There are a variety of ways these transfers are printed, but the key aspect is that the transfers do not have to be cut or weeded. This allows for more intricate and detailed designs and significantly decreases the labour requirements we discussed with CAD Cut Vinyl.

Because the transfers are being printed by the supplier and shipped to us, the timeline is extended. Pre-printed transfer pricing is significantly quantity driven and generally only makes sense at 50+ transfers with the true pricing value being at 100+ transfers.

Pre-printed transfers are also a great solution when you know you will want a quantity over time, it just takes an initial investment in the transfers upfront. For example, if you know you will be ordering 100 or more of that design over the next year, we can have all the transfers printed with the initial order and then you can get smaller quantities on a frequent basis and just pay the pressing fee. There is more upfront investment, but you save over time verses the price of printing transfers in small quantities each time you order the same design. There is some risk if you decide to change the logo or design before using all the transfers.

Normal Timeline:  2-3 weeks (but still highly dependent on quantity)

Pros of Pre-Printed Transfers

þ  Great when you know you have an ongoing need for the same design, in the same size for multiple projects over a period of time.

þ  Can handle intricate designs, small text or details.

þ  Long lasting colour.

þ  Great for cotton and most cotton/polyester blends.

þ  Can print images and full colour designs.

Cons of Pre-Printed Transfers

ý  Still not advisable for large one-time orders as the pressing is still very labour intensive making it less economical and can take longer than other automated decoration methods.

ý  Artwork size and placement can be limited by the size of the press.

ý  Can not be used on heat or pressure sensitive fabrics.

ý  If you do order a large quantity upfront and then change your logo or design, transfers can not be recycled or refunded.

Digital Printing, DTG (Direct to Garment), DTF (Direct to Fabric)

Towards the end of the 1990’s a new method of printing on textiles using ink jet technology entered the market. You may hear it called digital printing, DTG (Direct to Garment) or DTF (Direct to Fabric). Essentially, it is exactly as it sounds, the ink is applied right to the garment by sending it through a special printer. Because you are printing directly on the garment, you can essentially print any design you could print on paper.

The garment is pre-treated so that the ink will “stick”, goes through the printer to add one (or more than one for darker colour garments) coat of white as a base so the colours stand out, it then goes back through the printer to print the design and ends with going through a heater to dry the ink.

Due to the cost of the specialized printers (can run from $10,000 to $500,000), this process is normally done by a contract printer, not in-house like other types of decoration, and there are less decorators offering this decoration method than the other methods listed.

If you want to see a DTG printer in action – check out this short video.

Normal Timeline:  3-4 weeks

Pros of Digital Printing

þ  Print as many colours as desired without paying per colour.

þ  Does not have the set-up processes or additional equipment that other decoration methods have so it is capable of handling smaller quantity jobs more efficiently.

þ  You don’t feel the “print” on the fabric like you do with other decoration methods.

Cons of Digital Printing

ý  Designed to print with cotton so it will work best with 100% cotton or high cotton content products.

ý  Colours can wash out over time (MULTIPLE washes, not immediately, just compared to other decoration methods).

ý  Limited artwork placement as the garment needs to fit on the frame that is sent through the printer.

ý  Fewer contract decorators with Direct to Garment printers so the timeline tends to be longer than other types of decoration.

Sublimation

Sublimation printing is a great way to make single or full colour designs come to life with a long lasting imprint that you can’t feel. Because it turns the ink from a solid into a gas, the colour adheres into the fabric verses other methods that are put on to the fabric so your design will never crack or peel and is breathable. Similar to Digital Printing, it’s a great method for printing pictures and multi-colour designs because it doesn’t need to separate colours and there is no additional charge for having multiple colours in a design.

There is a catch, though, it only works on 100% polyester items. Also, because the ink is actually absorbed by the fabric, it means you can’t print white, and the colour of the fabric will change the nature of the colours printed on it. This is why these designs look best on white or light-coloured items and designs will not show up or will have significant colour distortion on dark or bright coloured items.

This is another in-house decoration technique, for smaller items. Your design is printed onto a special paper and then heat applied to the garment. In-house, this means your design size is limited by the size of the paper we can print on and the size of the heat press. If you have 2 minutes, check out this video to see how it works.

Similar to CAD Cut Vinyl, our in-house capabilities are geared towards small orders as it is still a very manual, labour-intensive process and therefore more costly than other decoration methods or our contracting it out to suppliers with the equipment to sublimate larger sizes and automation.  Check out the difference by watching this quick video.

Normal Timeline: 1-2 weeks (but highly dependent on quantity)

Pros of Sublimation

þ  Print as many colours as desired without paying per colour.

þ  Does not have the set-up processes or additional equipment that other decoration methods have so it is capable of handling smaller quantity jobs more efficiently.

þ  You don’t feel the “print” on the fabric like you do with other decoration methods.

Cons of Sublimation

ý  Only works on 100% polyester items.

ý  In-house printing: Limited artwork placement and size because of printing and pressing equipment.

ý  Can’t print white, design colours will be impacted by the colour of the fabric it is printed on.

Embroidery

Probably one of the best-known decoration methods, embroidery, stitches the design on to the fabric. It is one of the most popular methods because of the professional appearance, long lasting design and options for colour and design.

With embroidery, your design needs to be digitized (created in a format that directs the embroidery machine to stitch your design), so there is an upfront fee but once the file has been digitized you shouldn’t have to pay an additional set up fee unless you change the size of the design or want to change an element of the design.

Because a digitized file isn’t specific to colour, just areas that are the same colour, once a file is set up, it doesn’t have to be stitched in the same colour each time. You see this a lot with one colour logos where the colour it is stitched changes based on the colour of the item it is being stitched on or where text normally black for example can be changed to white (or another colour) when being stitched on something black.

Embroidery is a great method to use for small and large orders and is a very economical decoration method for most apparel, hats, blankets, or bags. It isn’t the best options for extremely light weight materials (because of the weight of the stitches and the tendency to pucker) or materials that are too thick or rigid (needles can’t easily pass through the material).

Once the file has been digitized, you can get a more accurate quote as the pricing for embroidery is related to the number of stitches it will take to create your design. Most moderately left chest logos (about 3.5” wide) will be about 6,000 – 8,000 stitches. The larger the decoration area, the more stitches it will take to create your design. Because designs are recreated using stitches, it is difficult to embroider gradients or designs with too many colour variations or small details.

Although embroidery can be done on a variety of items, the size and ability to embroider in certain locations can be limited by the ability to be able to firmly connect an embroidery hoop around the area being embroidered. We also need to be able to connect the hoop to the machine and so large, bulky items may not fit into the machine.

Normal Timeline: 2-3 weeks

Pros of Embroidery

þ  Once your file is set up, it’s economical for as few as 1 piece or hundreds of items.

þ  Can have multiple-coloured designs.

þ  You don’t always have to embroider in the same colour (great to be able to change the colour of the design to best suit the colour of the item being embroidered).

þ  Has a very professional look and feel.

þ  Is very durable and long lasting.

Cons of Embroidery

ý  Can’t always capture the small detail or fine text.

ý  May be limited in size and location of decoration due to the need to hoop items and fit them into the embroidery machine.

ý  Not economical for one-time designs due to the fee to digitize the design or for large designs due to the number of stitches.

ý  Because you are stitching through fabric, the back of the stitching will be visible (for single layer items or items that don’t have embroidery pockets).