Hi friend, We'll be looking at the five main types of activewears printing method. We'll look at each method, the pros and cons and where it's best applied, so hope you guys are ready. This is going to be good article. And if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below, Sportfit Wear activewear manufacturers team will get into them, so let's get it.
Whether it's a business, celebrity endorsements, or your own brand, you need to create an active fashion brand that offers tips, tricks, and actionable steps to attract your own customers.
Tpye 1 Silk Screen Printing or screen printing
Pros Easily Replicable
This method essentially uses a screen that's held up with a nylon mesh and some waterproof material that allows or doesn't allow the ink to go through, and this is one of the most widely used methods because it's easily replicable over some different garments. So it's perfect for mass production.
Cons 1 Color Per Screen & Non Durable
What you'll see is these factories set up with in a circle of format where the garments will be coming on one by one and you have the screen set up in a circle format, and they'll essentially transfer the income to the garment that one of the main cons of this type of printing method is you can only print one color for screen. If you have a design with a ton of different colors, you have to have multiple screens. which obviously brings up the cost, and it's also not as durable as other methods, you'll notice the screen printed t shirts. do we have this rough field and over time, they'll start to crack or the soft that just kind of fade out. so in terms of durability, this is not your best option.
Tpye 2 DTG Printing or Direct to Garment Printing
This method will essentially use what looks like a printer, and it will print the ink on. it's a special type of ink that will print on to textile.
Pros Low Setup Costs
This method is awesome for like low run manufacturing because you can print one ops without having high set up costs.
Cons Low Resolution & Thin Ink
One of the main drawbacks of small manufacturers buying basic equipment to produce is the very low resolution of print quality.
Also, the thickness of the ink is also like it's very thin, so you will feel that there's anything substantial on the surface that will just feel like part of the garment. You can expect the ink to just completely fade away within a year to two years, and you won't be able to use DTG printing on the darker colors because just the inquiry register properly, and you won't be able to see the design properly. so that's one of the main main drawbacks.
Type 3 Sublimation Printing
This is one of the most durable methods you can use. It's a bit chemically complex, but this is just the fit. Essentially, you have your garment, you would apply this liquid die once it hits the fabric, you wanna use polyester fabric, however super unforgiving with cotton, and that's why most of the fabrics or most of the sportswear you see using sublimation printing are going to be heavily polyester base, and once it hits the polyester, it solidifies and then you'd apply heat to it, such as seamless wear. And the solid evaporates, and it leaves essentially the die in the thread themselves. And that's why you get this really the formidable or like robust looking print that it looks like it's just completely part of the garment.
Pros Durable & Flexible with Designs
So one of the main benefits of that is. you can create these crazy designs, crazy patterns with a wide range of colors, as many colors as you want a super durable. These kinds of patterns are are mostly used in like sports jerseys, where you have these really loud designs that span across the the garments or even in the martial art space where you have a lot of friction being applied onto the onto the fabric.
So you want to make sure the prints or or the graphics that you have. i think he's going to wear out over time because of like actual friction, so they're super durable, and you can create these wild designs with as many colors as you want.
Cons Limited to Polyester
The main issue is you're really limited to polyester based fabric. so that's really the trade off over there.
Tpye 4 Heat Press Printing
It's the type of printing method that is used on a lot of athletic gear for smaller logos. labels that kind of stuff and essentially what it is is use a special type of paper to make the logos and put the graphics on to kind of like stickers, and once you make that sticker paper, you would apply on to a garment and using a heat press, you you dial the heat press according to the to the fabric that's being used in the type of print or adhesive. the type of actual like glue that is on the sticker itself, so you kind of optimize those two things to make sure that you get the best possible adhesion on to the garment, and you just literally pressed it onto the garment. this is the type of printing method that you've seen on a lot of like sports or like Nike. Gymshark uses it a lot.
Pros Low Setup Cost & Sharp Designs
It's awesome because you can create relatively low numbers of it does not like that high set of costs in terms of setting up a heat transfer print. You get these really nice angles is really kind of clean looking lines, and it just has an overall much more polished look than screen printing. In my opinion, the main con is if done incorrectly, they can peel out easily, so there is kind of like a trial and error there.
Cons Demanding Extra Quality Control
And of course, they need a bit of a quality control. when being applied, you need to make sure that you know what you're doing when applying it, so that's really the main drawback there.
Type 5 Embroidery
It's not really a printing method, but it's a it's a form of getting a logo or brand identity on their garment is embroidery. This obviously is what you think of involves, like stitching a thread onto the garment itself and creating the logo out of the thread.
Pros Durable
The main benefit of this is durable. Embroidery logos look luxurious and there's super durable.
Cons Demanding Extra Quality Control & Limitation with Design
The main drawbacks of this is if they're done poorly, they look really cheap and you kind of limited in terms of the complexities of the logos being used. You don't want to have logos with too much geometry or complexity or too many colors. You obviously need to change threads every time you have a different color, so and there's limitations in the complexity in the amount of that, that in terms of what this thing can look like with embroidered logos.
Now you guys have learned a finger to about the five main types of printing methods that are commonly used on garments, sportswear.
Hopefully you have a better idea of the pros and cons of each and where to use each different type of print. When you wholesale active wear, it is helpful for your decision.Â
This has been an informative and something that genuinely have to help me the world to us. Thank you so much for reading. it's been an absolute pleasure.