T-shirt printing

T shirt printing falls into 3 major categories.
	DTG Transfer Printing Screen Printing

The most suitable process to use is determined by the following:
	Type of garment How many items you want printed What you want to print on the garment

Direct to Garment (DTG):
DTG is only meant to be used on a very high cotton content, preferably 100%. If you use it on a 50% polyester 50% cotton mix, it will look OK but the printing will washout pretty quickly. Because the garments actually pass through the printer, you can only print t-shirts and polo shirts with any ease. You can print sweatshirts and hoodies, but this can sometimes cause problems. The rule is that the bulkier the garment, the more difficult for DTG. The advantage of Direct to Garment printing is that if it satisfies the above requirements, it will print most types of design (even photos) with ease and in quite small quantities, at a reasonable price. Click here to go DTG

Transfer Printing
Transfer Printing will print onto almost anything, even bulky jackets! But because it is a thin vinyl film that is bonding into the fabric with pressure and heat, it has its limitations. Because Transfer Printing is a piece of vinyl film that has been digitally cut out, it is just a solid colour. The more colours you want, the more the cost goes up! If the Transfer Printing process suits your logo its is very cheap to use and is guaranteed to last for the life time of the clothing. In addition it gives very bright strong colours and sharp edges. Click here to go to Transfer Printing

Screen Printing
Screen printing really comes into its own if you need over 50 items of clothing printed. This is because you have to have screens made before you can start printing. These cost 15-25 pounds each, so if you have a 3 colour logo, it will cost you about £50 before you start printing. The actual print costs are very cheap, when the screen have been paid for and compare very favourably to other types of printing. The process also is very long lasting and can be used for most types of clothing. Click here to go to Screen Printing

Type of garment
By what type of garment, we are referring to the fabric it is made from rather than if it is a t-shirt or a sweatshirt, although this can have some influence as well. There are broadly 3 different groups of fabric that most clothing is made from:
Cotton Poly/ cotton Man made You can only use DTG on a high percentage of cotton. If you DTG on a 50/50 mix of poly cotton it will look good until you wash it then it will fade rapidly

How many items you want printed
	Amazingly this falls into 3 more categories which are most economic for the following quantities: Up to 50 - Transfer Printing, Embroidery and DTG 50 to 100 - Transfer Printing, Embroidery, DTG and Screen Printing 100plus - Embroidery, DTG and Screen Printing

What you want to print on the garment
Each logo or artwork has characteristics that make it more suitable to one process rather than another.

Heat Transfer The background blue would come from the t-shirt. The hand, ring and chess piece all have solid colors and hard edges, which you have to have for this process.

Screen Printing Again the grey background would come from the t-shirt. The rest of the image looks very complicated with has soft edges and gradation, but screen printing can reproduce this easily especially as there is only two colours, orange and brown, to print.

DTG This is a very complex image and although it is not photographic, it is no less complicated. It has too many colours for screen printing. The DTG process would have no difficulty and should produce a lovely job.