With the emergence of newer types of materials over the past few years, such as performance material, moisture-wicking fabrics, etc.; there has also been some new imprinting issues.
Most of these materials are thin polyester, polyester blend or other synthetic materials. Screen printing works well on a lot of these, but not as much for some of the nicer polos or baseball caps. Embroidery has been the preferred method but some complain it causes the material to gather around the logo, or they do not like the embroidery backing.
Now there is Direct to Film, or DTF, which seems to be a great alternative. Direct to film involves first printing the imprint on a piece of film and then transferring it to the garment with a heat press.
What are the benefits?
- There is no gathering of the material around the imprint.
- DTF imprints actually pop better than embroidery does.
- The set-ups are minimal so there’s no high set-up fees even with imprints that have many different colors. There is not a set-up per color.
- DTF is better when small type is involved. Letters like “o”, “d”, “a”, “e”, etc. tend to fill in when embroidering in small sizes. DTF does not.
- DTF is also better for lower quantity runs because of the low set-up fees.
Here are a couple of examples below.
If you would like more information or to have a sample produced with your logo let us know. kevin@promohounds.com