Printed clothing and promotional merchandise are effective marketing tools that raise brand awareness among customers. Not everyone knows, however, how these items are actually produced. T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other garments and products must be branded using specialist techniques. Professional print shops use different equipment depending on what each client needs. Which method will work best for your order? Find out how the various printing methods differ and discover which one suits your design.
How Does the Branding Process Work for Clothing and Promotional Products?
In a professional print shop, branding is applied to clothing and promotional materials using a range of methods — screen printing, sublimation, DTG printing, and flex film. The process of applying a design to a chosen product varies with each technique, but regardless of the method, the result is exceptionally durable. The design retains its color depth and looks polished. All methods ensure that prints on clothing and promotional merchandise will not wear away or fade. Even with heavy use of the garments or items, the company logo will remain crisp and clear.
It’s worth noting that printing with a given technique always follows the same process, regardless of what product is being branded. For some methods, the size of the material may be a limiting factor, but there’s no need to worry about branding T-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, or small client gifts — orders like these will always be fulfilled.
Screen-Printed Clothing — How Is It Made?
Screen printing is the most widely used technique for branding clothing and promotional merchandise — it’s the starting point of almost every print shop’s offering. The design is applied using several pieces of equipment, including a film plotter, exposure unit, washout booth, pressure washer, and carousel press.
- film plotter,
- exposure unit,
- washout booth,
- pressure washer,
- carousel press.
The first step is creating the design and preparing a special template called a screen. The screen is stretched over a frame, and the emulsion blocks out the areas that should not be printed. Ink is then pushed through the open areas onto the T-shirt, sweatshirt, or other material. The product is then placed in a curing oven to fix the print and ensure the merchandise is resistant to damage.
Sublimation Printing — What Makes It Special?
Sublimation is primarily used on light-colored T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other garments. Once the design has been prepared, the process begins by printing it onto sublimation paper using specialist inks. The biggest advantage of this technique is that the chosen design penetrates the fabric fibers, which guarantees exceptional color depth.
It’s worth noting that the dyes used in sublimation bond best with polyester T-shirts and sweatshirts. This doesn’t mean, however, that the technique is off the table for customers looking for promotional merchandise in other materials — fabrics with a cotton blend also work well. Just bear in mind that the higher the polyester content, the better the print quality.
Flex Film — Which Products Is It Best For?
The process of creating prints on T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other promotional merchandise using flex film is quite specific. It involves a cutting plotter and a heat transfer press. As always, a design must be created before the order is placed. The design or logo is then vectorized, which allows its size to be adjusted freely without any loss of quality.
The cut-out print is applied to the garment by weeding away the excess film and then heat-pressing the remaining design onto the product. This technique is growing in popularity due to its relatively low cost and easy processing.
DTG Printing — Is It Worth It?
DTG (Direct to Garment) is one of the most technologically advanced methods for branding T-shirts and corporate merchandise. Prints produced this way feature an exceptionally wide color gamut, allowing the original design quality to be preserved even at high resolution. Regardless of the color of the garment or product, colors and tonal gradients remain deep and vivid.
The branding process itself is not very different from conventional printing. The T-shirt or other item is placed on a special platen, which is then fed into the machine — an advanced piece of equipment specifically designed for printing directly onto fabric.
What Fabrics and Promotional Items Can Be Branded?
Not all prints on T-shirts will look equally good — this is because different materials absorb inks differently. The most durable results are achieved with high-quality cotton or polyester garments. To avoid disappointment, it’s worth doing a test print before placing the full order, especially when working with nylon or rubber-based materials.
For corporate promotional merchandise, print durability also depends on the material of the product itself. The most popular items include mugs, towels, keyrings, and bags — but there’s no shortage of other interesting gift options. With the right branding technique, they will all look elegant and polished.
