T-Shirt & Apparel Printing
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Leading Branded Wear in Pretoria
Screen Printing on T-Shirts
The most commonly used printing on T-shirts is screen printing. For the screen-printing process, positives must be prepared, silk screens must be manufactured and then set-up manually. This is a labour intensive and time-consuming process and therefore more costly when lower quantities are printed, but more economical on larger quantities. Please note that dark coloured T-shirts are usually more expensive to screen print on than lighter or white T-shirts.
Our minimum order quantities for T-shirts to be silk screened, is 100. The biggest advantage of silkscreen printing is that the ink penetrates the material and is then treated with a heat process. This process ensures an extended lifecycle for your print and creates the impression that the shirt is breathable.
We use a few methods for T-shirt printing:
- Screen Printing
- Video Flex Printing
- Digital direct-on-garment Printing
- Direct to Film (DTF)
In addition to printing, we also offer T-shirts at affordable prices. Our printing is not limited to T-shirts and Golf shirts, we also print on all kinds of materials. We have a catalogue of standard promotional shirts, as well as corporate shirts available. If you require a quote on any of our shirts, simply supply us with the unique product code in our catalogue, together with the colour required, and the quantity of units per size, and we will forward a quotation to you. Click HERE to send us your quotation request.
The quality of our T-Shirts
The first step in printing T-shirts, is choosing the colour and quality of the T-shirts required.
It is a common mistake to assume that the thickness or weight of a T-shirt dictates its quality. The weight of T-shirt material is measured according to the grams per m² of the material. This is usually between 135 grams and 180 grams p/m². As an example, a 145 gram T-shirt is not necessarily of a lesser quality than a 170 gram T-shirt. A T-shirt that is categorised as a 145 gram, pre-shrunk, 100% cotton with interlock weaving will appear neater and hold its shape for longer than a 180gram carded cotton T-shirt.
Carded cotton is usually made from a lower grade material and is mass produced. The colouring process in the production of these T-shirts is of a lower quality and has the tendency to fade after prolonged wash-and-wear. Regardless, these lower grade shirts remain popular because of the competitive market and client budget constraints.
Combing and carding are two ways of preparing the raw fibres for spinning yarn. In order to make yarn, raw fibre must go through an alignment process. Here are some of the differences between carded and combed yarn:
- Carding the fibres creates a somewhat woollier yarn because the alignment process is not as meticulous.
- Combing creates a more even yarn because this process aligns the fibres better. The combing process is more expensive because it allows for more wastage during the process.
As a rule, we only supply 100% cotton T-shirts unless otherwise requested.
You are most welcome to supply your own T-shirts for printing.
FAQ's
If you have any further questions please contact us directly.
Our team would love to help you!
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When requesting your quotation for silk screen printed T-shirts, please provide the following information:
- Does the artwork have spot colours or gradient colours?
- Quantity of T-shirts to be printed
- The size of the design/s
- Artwork in a print ready, editable vector format
- Quantity of different colours in the design
- The amount of different colours in the design/s
We need to see the design or artwork before sending a quote. In cases where you cannot provide the artwork in an editable print ready format, our team of designers can assist you in the re-design of the artwork at an additional cost. The editable artwork will remain your property and can always be re-used, even at different printing companies.
This heat transfer process starts when digitally printing in full colour on a plastic-like vinyl material that is cut into any shape and then transferred to a surface by a heat press. With the heat transfer process, the transfer sheet is pressed at 180°C to 200°C.
Video flex offers two main options:
- Using pre-pigmented video flex. This will not fade in colour, and more than 50 colours can be used, ranging from gloss, matt, glow-in-the-dark, glitter and many more.
- Secondly, you can have your design printed on either a clear video flex which is recommended for white T-shirts or off-white video flex.
When you choose cut-out video flex, we have no limitations, although very fine detail in your design can significantly increase the cost and is a lot more labour intensive.
The more detail your design entails, the longer it will take for us to do the cut-out, and this is more costly. We prefer to see your artwork beforehand, to enable us to give you a more accurate quotation.
This has a faster turnaround time, compared to other printing methods. Designs print more clearly than with other printing methods. On low quantities, Flex cut out or Direct to film & transfer is more cost effective than silkscreen printing, especially when many colours are involved on low quantities to be printed.
Some clients dislike the plastic-like surface of video flex due to the fact that the print is not “breathable” in the case of large solid designs. It is advised that you don’t iron, tumble dry, machine wash or dry clean heat transferred products.
The best way to wash your garments are by hand in cold water. Artwork with fine outline detail sharp edges and fades cannot be cut-out. However, the design can be put in a white block (or another colour) and pressed as a solid artwork. With the printable Flex option the colour will start to fade after a couple of washes.
This is a computer to printer process of T-shirt printing. This process is usually recommended in cases where the design involves full-colour printing of images or logos and is more expensive of the three processes and does not involve the manufacturing of silkscreens and positives as in the case with silkscreen printing.
The quality of full colour T-shirt printing is superior to that of screen printing. In cases where you want the same design printed on both adult and kid sized T-shirts, it is easier to scale the design up or down with digital printing. This process is ideal when your design includes more than two colours and you want to print relatively low quantities of shirts. It is quicker, less labour intensive and therefore, more cost-effective. This is a computer to printer process where there is no need for the preparation of silkscreens or positive film or printing, weeding and trimming of flex and therefore has the advantages of a much lower cost.
This process is the most costly printing process. The size of your design is the biggest determining factor when it comes to price, unlike in the case of screen-printing, where the number of colours is the determining factor.
Yes, we are able to manufacture small basic bags in house such as drawstring, keepsake, etc. from sublimated textiles. However, the majority of our bags listed online are sourced from a trade-only supplier that caters to the branding industry. We brand in house to be able to control quality and cost effectiveness.
