[thenaughty]

hello everyone,

so i started making a couple of shirts out of heat transfer vinyl (Sister easy-weed, and Circuit vinyl specifically). i also know about screen printing, but i was looking at my clothes and saw that there are a lot of other materials, like there is this grippy rubbery feel on one of my shirts. i just wanted to know what other ways are there to print t shirts?

 

[kimura-mma]

The most common method to print t-shirts for retail is screen printing. Most of what you find in the market place right now are screen printed. There are a variety of inks used in this process, so that is why you may notice a rubbery feel (plastisol inks), softer rubbery feel (soft hand plastisol inks) or no feel at all (water based inks). There are also specialty inks like glitter or puff. Screen printing is very cost effective for large print runs, so that is why many larger clothing brands (including major name brands) use this method.

Direct-to-garment or digital printing has come a long way over the years; the quality has improved greatly. It is not a great option for larger print runs, but it has become more popular for smaller clothing brands doing smaller print runs. It also allows a lot of creative freedom because you can design full color prints without having to color separate your artwork.

Dye sublimation is a quality print method, but only works for polyester garments; so it has it's limitations.

Then there's heat transfers. Seems like you may already know about them. Unless you are doing simple text based graphics, I wouldn't recommend heat transfers for starting up a clothing brand. Screen printing or DTG is the better way to go.

 

[Yahmed2]

Look up Pipa and Modal fabrics.