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Justin Walker · October 26th, 2009

I had a customer order a large number of custom golf towels, a few weeks ago. I had never printed on golf towels, for a customer, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I picked up a few towels from my local blank supplier (I used Staton Wholesale, but I am sure TSC Apparel, SanMar, and all the big guys carry them) and got to work. The customer supplied a small logo, and wanted me to add a simple ruler along the edge of the towels, since they would be used for a major fishing event and the guys wanted to measure the fish they caught. I was a little uncertain about running an image along the edge of the towels, but I gave it a shot; it worked great! I simply lined up the edge of the towel to the edge of the platen, spent about 10 seconds making sure they're straight, then hit print!

Benefits of towel printing:

- Towels are cheap. Depending on the size / style you get, they are often less than t-shirts.
- Most people like white towels; you don't have to figure out how to print on darks.
- Ink is cheap! Even if they cover a lot of the towel, the small golf towels are smaller than t-shirts, so there is less space to decorate. This equates to less cost, and more profit! If the client wants a larger towel, and you are utilizing the full 14" x 16" print area, then you would charge a higher premium, of course.
- Print time isn't bad.... Even though I recommend printing towels in UNI DIRECTIONAL MODE (to accommodate the higher level of surface texture on the substrate), the print time is decent because of the smaller print area.

This is how the fish towels came out:

The customer loved them, and I was inspired, so I decided to do a few more samples:

Oh yeah, and not that it matters, but this artwork was prepared in CMYK mode, and printed from Photoshop using prepared CMYK spot colors that I have optimized over time:

dim116 · October 26th, 2009

Very nice indeed.

printchic · October 26th, 2009

Very nice Justin,

Towels are nice. I did a few last year and they work great. Thanks for sharing.

XYLisa · October 26th, 2009

Is there any particular style of towel that's better than another....such as all terry cloth with the bigger loops or the brushed cloth?

DAGuide · October 26th, 2009

Justin,

Nice job. One of the marketing things I recommend to dtg owners is to give a printed towel of the same graphic that they printed the shirts on. Towels are a great marketing tool for some of the reasons you mentioned (i.e. fairly cheap cost, use less ink,...) and they tend not to be folded and put in the drawer. So they get a good bang for your buck. Most people think they are only good as golf towel when there is the ribbited hole, but I just showed another creative use for them.

Nice job!

Mark

Scott07 · October 26th, 2009

Justin, Nice job on the golf towels. I like the ruler idea. Have you ever tried the spirit towels? They are even cheaper and we have found schools like them.

sunnydayz · October 28th, 2009

Those look great Justin, thanks for posting up the pics. I have been thinking of trying towels on my machine, just have not gotten around to it yet

Ahhhhh that never ending list of things to print on hehe.

HGE · October 28th, 2009

Nice work those turned out well.

baddjun1 · October 28th, 2009

Very good prints, Justin. Great marketing idea, Mark. Towels are a good way to stay in the customer's eyesight.

Dennis Graves · October 30th, 2009

How much do you normally sell the towels for?

I've thought about doing them in the past but never thought they would sell for very much. I know you can get them for around $1 each, but how much can you mark them up?

Thanks,

Dennis Graves

Justin Walker · October 30th, 2009

I did an order of 50 towels for $4.35 / ea, and the customer was very pleased.

Dennis Graves · November 12th, 2009

What did you set your ink level to?

I just printed one out and it stuck to the heat press and left some ink on the press that I had to clean off before I could print anything else. It was mostly the red.

Thanks,

Dennis

InkSOCIETY · December 11th, 2009

The pics are great looking and the colors are so vibrant!

Leslie Magana · December 11th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by XYLisa


	Is there any particular style of towel that's better than another....such as all terry cloth with the bigger loops or the brushed cloth?

The Velour Towel gives you a much better print. The loup in some of the standard towels after printing will distort the image.

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