While the genesis of our company is/was promotional items, these days we do more custom apparel and t-shirt printing than ever before. In fact, it's become a huge component of our annual business plan.-
Since we do so many custom shirts in Omaha (and beyond!), we figured we would revisit your various decorating options. Some of the more popular methods of t-shirt decoration are screen printing, embroidery, appliqué, vinyl and DTG.
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Screen printing is the most popular and least expensive way to decorate a shirt. Your t-shirt options are limitless (cost, cut/fit, material type, sleeve length, yadda yadda). Traditional ink-to-shirt decorating is tantamount to painting the tee. Newer discharge ink processes result in a different look and are typically very soft to the touch.
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Embroidery is the next most popular form of custom apparel decoration. To some, it has a higher perceived value, but embroidered garments cost more (the cost to embroider a shirt is sometimes as much as the cost of the shirt itself!). Why? It's a long process requiring expensive machinery.
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Appliqué is a form of embroidery that uses a combination of material and sewing to produce a final design. Basically the material takes the place of large fields of space where sewing would require a higher thread count and time. The perceived value of appliqué is very high, but generally costs less than embroidery because it's less labor intensive.
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Apparel vinyl yields a similar result to screen printing. It's economical for short runs where screen printing would not be. The material price is the same per unit for one, twenty, or one thousand units. It is more expensive than screen printing for large fields and for multi color designs, however.
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Finally, Direct Garment Printing or DTG is the process of applying a printed design, much like screen printing, on a garment via an inkjet printer. As a rule, the cost of the equipment and volume that can be run make this process viable for short runs only. DTG has it's place in the custom apparel decorating world; its use depends on your individual project, however.
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The aforementioned decorating techniques aren't your all-inclusive custom t-shirt printing/custom apparel options. The best thing we at Omaha Promos can do is talk to you personally. No marketing speak or high pressure, just well articulated options and rock solid advice based on your wants and budget.
