can lcd displays be put on clothing manufacturer
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The breakthrough has been made by researchers from the Holland’s Holst Centre, Belgium headquartered imec, and CMST, imec’s associated lab at Ghent University.
Wearable devices such as healthcare monitors and activity trackers are quite common, but to date they haven’t been integrated into clothing. Doing so will make wearable devices less obtrusive and more comfortable, encouraging people to use them more regularly and increase the quality of data collected. A key step towards realising wearable devices in clothing is creating displays that can be integrated into textiles to allow interaction with the wearer.
“Wearable devices allow people to monitor their fitness and health so they can live full and active lives for longer. But to maximise the benefits wearables can offer, they need to be able to provide feedback on what users are doing as well as measuring it. By combining imec’s patented stretch technology with our expertise in active-matrix backplanes and integrating electronics into fabrics, we’ve taken a giant step towards that possibility,” said Edsger Smits, senior research scientist at Holst Centre.
The display is said to be very thin and mechanically stretchable. A fine-grain version of meander interconnect technology was developed by the CMST lab at Ghent University and Holst Centre to link standard (rigid) LEDs into a flexible and stretchable display.
The LED displays are fabricated on a polyimide substrate and encapsulated in rubber, allowing the displays to be laminated in to textiles that can be washed. Furthermore, the technology uses fabrication steps that are known to the manufacturing industry.
Following an initial demonstration at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week in San Jose, USA earlier this year, Holst Centre presented the next generation of the display at the International Meeting on Information Display (IMID) in Daegu, Korea where smaller LEDs are now mounted on an amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide (a-IGZO) TFT backplane that employs a two-transistor and one capacitor (2T-1C) pixel engine to drive the LEDs. These second-generation displays are claimed to offer higher pitch and increased, average brightness. The presentation featured a 32x32 pixel demonstrator with a resolution of 13 pixels per inch (ppi) and average brightness above 200 candelas per square meter (cd/m2).
A new kind of fabric can turn into a working keyboard, light up like a display, or even help send texts all while being bent, folded, and even washed like any other piece of clothing.
Researchers from China"s Fudan University built the material to withstand all the abuse we put other articles of clothing through while still serving as a useful piece of tech, according to The Independent. The tech, assuming it takes off and weaves its way into our clothing, could make for some useful new wearable gadgets — or, at the very least, lead to some great new hypebeast-style shirts with changing, billboard-like displays.
Most attempts to develop electronic textiles result in an unsurprisingly-fragile piece of cloth, but this new fabric display still worked, mostly, even after 100 washing and drying cycles, according to research published last week in the journal Nature.
That"s an important step toward building electronic clothing that actually makes it out of the lab and onto people"s bodies — a leap that has often proved insurmountable to other electronic textiles that remained in the proof-of-concept stage.
It"s not all fun and games, either. In the paper, the authors suggest that using a speech-to-text display that shows a message on their shirt could help people communicate in a new language or even help people with physical or cognitive impairments express their needs.
And in a purely aesthetic sense, the tech might open up a whole new world of clothing design as artists integrate electronic displays into outfits — hopefully even causing a revival of those cool light-up sneakers I never got to wear as a kid.
All these methods are age-old. Display your reports and dashboard on the LCD screen. This is an effective way to monitor shop floor production. Secondly production status will be visible to everyone who is working on the floor.
You also need data for the same. If you can provide these data on a digital display board, you don’t need to waste time in report making while you need.
You will say it is not possible to track the production of every minute. Checking hourly report or looking into it every half an hour is not possible.
With technology advancement it becomes possible. Now it becomes easier to display the production status of line real-time. Whatever reports you make in a spreadsheet can be displayed in the LCD screen. Just you need to take how many reports can be viewed in the LCD screen at a time.
You know the benefits of displaying real-time production and quality status to line supervisors and other staff members. I have mentioned it in another post – Use of display boards on sewing floor and its advantages.
If you have the technology to capture real-time production then, I suggest you add display board (digital) in the sewing floor. Our clients are using an LCD screen to display real-time data on the floor.
I have seen factories to use the LCD screen to display the production status of the sewing lines. Each sewing line has one display board at the end of the line. They display reports based on their need. See example on a few display boards.
This is a very simple one. They display line output quantity only. Other things like target production report are entered into the system. The balance quantity to be produced by the line in balance time and line efficiency at this moment is calculated by the system. See the following screen.
Efficiency data can be shown in speedometer or in digits. If you have multiple sewing line in one floor and you like to display data in one display board you can do that. See the screen no 2, the factory is displaying efficiency data for 3 lines.
Displaying the production quantity of critical operations of a line will help to see a balancing of the line. If there are pick and valley in the bar chart, you know that there is a balancing issue in the line. See graphs on screen 2.
You are checking stitched pieces at the end-of-line. You prepare quality reports on defects founds and frequency of defects. You do analysis stitching quality in the form of DHU (defects per 100 units) of checked pieces. If you don"t share quality performance of the line your reports have no use.
Like production reports, you can display other data and analysis on the LCD screen. One factory displays only operator hourly report on the screen. That helps them to monitor each and every sewing operator in the line. If anybody is producing below the target can be found easily.
You might ask how to make a report on the Excel sheet. And how to get real-time data if you don’t have real-time data tracking technology in your company.
Prepare report templates and punch data on an Excel sheet and make dashboard in a separate sheet. Then connect dashboard and reports to the LCD screen.
Consider displaying data on screens and place the screen on the shop floor. Make good reports using graph and charts. As data can"t be visible from a distance but a chart can be.
There has been some confusion about what, exactly, a fur fabric display is. Philips Electronics filed a patent application with the simple title "Fabric Display," though some science blogs and magazines have referred to it as "furry television." At its most basic level, this fur fabric display relies on a very simple technology. Patches of fur cover an image, and when the fur moves, it reveals the image underneath. It"s a simple way to conceal and reveal designs.
The fabric display has three layers. The bottom layer is conductive, which means it can carry electricity from a power source -- like a small battery pack -- to the rest of the fabric to create an electrostatic field across the fur, which gives each strand of fur the same electrical charge.
The next layer in a fur fabric display is the fabric"s base color or design. This could be a company logo, a picture or just a particular color. The furry display doesn"t change the design on the cloth; it just hides or reveals portions of the design at a given time.
The third layer is the fur. It can be any color, but it must be short enough so that when the user turns on the electrostatic field, the strands stand on end and reveal the design or color of the fabric underneath. For example, in a simple fur fabric display, you could use red fur to cover a blue shirt. When you turn on the power for the conductive layer, the red fur would stand on end, revealing the blue shirt underneath. To a distant observer, it would appear that the shirt had just magically changed colors.
The patent application refers to each small, visible section of the base fabric as a "pixel," which may be why some articles refer to the display as furry television. While it might be possible to approximate primitive animation techniques by printing one image across the fur layer and a slightly adjusted image on the fabric underneath, it"s not quite the same as watching television on someone"s jacket.
To understand static electricity, we need to start all the way down at the atomic level. All matter is made up of atoms, which contain charged particles. Atoms have a nucleus consisting of neutrons and protons and a surrounding shell that is made up of electrons. Neutrons carry no charge, but protons have a positive charge and electrons have a negative charge. So, if an atom has more protons than electrons, its charge is positive, and if it has more electrons than protons, its charge is negative. Similar charges repel each other and opposite charges attract one another. An electrostatic field applied to fur creates a similar charge across the fur and the base of the material. Since similar charges repel one another, the fur moves as far away from the base of the material and other strands of fur as it possibly can, causing the strands to stand on end.
A wearable interactive display made of a flexible, breathable electronic fabric can display simple maps and text messages, potentially for use in future smart clothing, a research group reports in its latest paper.
Increasingly, researchers around the world are investigating electronic textiles as the next step in wearable technology beyond smartphones and smartwatches. One problem with developing such wearable devices is that video displays are typically rigid and bulky.
Previous research has developed flexible thin-film displays that are rollable, foldable and stretchable. However, such electronics have not yet been successfully incorporated into clothing. This is because it has proven challenging to design textile displays that are both durable over time and easy to assemble over a large area.
Now, Chinese scientists have woven swaths of a new fabric display roughly 20 feet long by 10 inches wide. "It"s quite surprising and amazing that they"ve been able to scale their display to a piece of cloth that"s so large," said chemical engineer Zhenan Bao at Stanford University in California, who did not take part in this research.
To make the new textile, polymer scientists Peining Chen and Huisheng Peng at Fudan University in Shanghai and their colleagues weave electrically conductive transparent fibers and luminescent threads together with cotton yarn into a flexible, breathable fabric. The fabric contains roughly half a million pixels, one for each point where the electrically conductive weft threads meet the luminescent warp fibers, spaced about 800 microns apart. (In comparison, the average human hair is about 100 microns wide.)
The fabric is about as bright as the average flat-screen TV. The researchers noted their prototype was also significantly more durable than conventional thin-film flexible displays, making it more suitable for practical use. The performance for most of the display remained stable after 1,000 cycles of bending, stretching and pressing, and 100 cycles of washing and drying.
One likely application for this is wearable displays. The researchers incorporated a touch-sensitive 16-button fabric keyboard, solar-energy-harvesting threads and battery fibers into their textile to add interactivity and a power supply. They added electronics to wirelessly link it to a smartphone via a Bluetooth connection so users could send and receive messages on their sleeves, as well as see their real-time locations on a map.
Another potential use lies in health care. Included in the prototypes was a roughly 9-inch-by-2.5-inch textile display that could help monitor volunteers who wore headsets that read their brain waves. When the headsets detected low-frequency brain waves from meditating participants, the devices transmitted that data to a computer linked to the fabric so that it displayed the word "relaxed." When the headsets detected high-frequency brain waves from volunteers playing a race car game, the fabric displayed the word "anxious."
In the future, smart clothing might help display messages from people with voice, speech and language impairments, the scientists noted. It might even work in concert with devices that can decode complex brain waves to figure out what these people would like to say but cannot, they added.
The researchers noted they could lower the amount of voltage needed to operate their displays to less than 36 volts. Still, "putting displays with this kind of voltage directly on the body may potentially be a concern," Bao cautioned.
The scientists said they have product models of their fabric available now, and many companies are in talks to use them. They detailed their findings online March 10 in the journal Nature.
Inside Science is an editorially independent nonprofit print, electronic and video journalism news service owned and operated by the American Institute of Physics.
We know how important it is to feel comfortable in whatever you are wearing. We all have our favorite shirt that is always the first to be pulled out of the drawer. If you are like us, you might even get a little excited when you open the drawer and realize it is clean. It just makes your day better. Trust us, we know.
So, you might have a style or brand of shirt that you want to provide to us for screen printing or embroidery. Good news! …you can provide your own items to us. However, before you hand over your most prized clothing items, let’s cover a couple of ground rules.
This is just the ugly truth about our business – mistakes happen. Although mistakes do not happen too frequently, there is always the possibility that something happens during production to damage a garment. Fortunately, when you order your items from us, we are able to replace those items quickly, and you are never even aware that an error ever took place.
See, we order our blank items from several vendors across the country, and they carry a limited number of brands and styles. (Limited in this case = tens of thousands of items). There is a good chance you could give us an item that we cannot source from one of these vendors. If we were to damage an item you provided during production, we would not be able to replace that item. Instead, we would notify you that there was a damage and offer a comparable item that we can source from a vendor.
Long story short – mistakes happen. If a mistake occurs on an item you provide, we will offer a comparable replacement from one of our vendors. If you have any questions on what items are available for us to source, please ask before placing your order.
So, you are thinking you could buy some basic cotton tees and provide them to us for screen printing. Maybe you see a killer deal for some basic t-shirts for $5 each. You reason that you could buy them, provide them to us, and have them screen printed for a cheaper price than if you were to buy the shirts from us.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The basic cotton tee would be much less expensive if you purchased it blank from us. Furthermore, when we provide all-inclusive pricing (garment + screen printing) to our clients, the total price of the job is typically less.
Unless you are not a contract screen printing client, it is in your benefit to source your items from us. More than likely, your all-in cost per unit will be lower than if you provided your own items. But, if you can get a basic cotton tee for $1… well, damn – that is a hell of a deal. We might need your connect.
Announced in a press release on Thursday, the stretchable display has a resolution of 100ppi and is capable of displaying full-color RGB. The prototype was created using micro LEDs with a sub-40μm pixel pitch that were built into a silicon substrate typically used in contact lenses. According to LG Display, this gives it a consistency “similar to that of a rubber band” and allows it to be stretched in any direction by up to 20 percent.
Other styles of flexible display technology have been commercially available for some time, such as LG’s own rollable OLEDTV or the LG G Flex phone. Foldable devices also often utilize a malleable screen, though this new stretchable display technology is theoretically more flexible while providing better durability — supposedly capable of comfortably withstanding heavy external impacts.
“Stretchable displays are not only thin and light, but also can be attached to curved surfaces such as skin, clothing, and furniture,” LG Display says in a press release. The company hasn’t announced any products that will feature the technology but expect it will eventually be utilized within industries such as wearables, mobility, smart devices, gaming, and fashion. This stretchable screen is the first prototype being developed by LG Display as part of a government-led development project, with the Korean-based company hoping to improve on the display technology by 2024.
LG Display isn’t the only company exploring stretchable displays. Samsung has previously showcased the viability of the tech in real-world applications after creating a stretchable OLED screen in a prototype heart rate monitor back in June 2021.
Screen printing (also known as silkscreen printing) is a simple way of creating an image/design on a surface (e.g. fabric, garment, paper, etc…) by pressing ink through a stenciled screen. Due to its simplicity, screen printing has been around for a very long time and while most people imagine t-shirts when they think of screen printing, this technique is used in many other industries, including more advanced ones such as conductors and resistors.
At FittDesign, we use screen printing when the artwork consists of just a few colors (no more than 3 to 4), such as logos, phrases, and simple graphics. For anything more complex (photographs, designs with gradations, and complex graphics), we typically go for digital printing. Although it’s technically possible to screen print designs with more than just a few colors, it just becomes a much harder job and the results may not be as good as you want.
The first step is to create the screens (1 for each color in the artwork), so if your artwork has 3 different colors, then you’ll need with 3 different screens. The screen making process is the trickiest, so it should not be rushed. But once you have your screens, you can make print as many items as you want.
To get each colored layer of your artwork on to a screen you need to use a photo-emulsion process that involves using chemicals and UV light. Photo emulsion is thick liquid substance which hardens when exposed to light, making it difficult to remove from surfaces. This property makes it perfect for creating the stencil for the ink to pass through the screen. You can learn about this process in more detail here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIHOSzbNT8Q
Once you have the screens, you’re ready to ‘print’ them onto the target surface such as a garment. This works by placing the screen above the garment and squeezing the ink through the screen using a squeegee. While this can be done by hand, if you’re printing many pieces, it’s best to use a printing machine. After the ink has been placed, the garment should be heated to seal the ink in.
Water-based inks – This is a higher-end ink made for super soft shirts (commonly used in retail printing) and usually last as long as the garment does.
Plastisol – This is a plastic-based ink and is one of the most common types of ink used in screen printing for apparel, especially for thick prints. Unlike water-based inks, Plastisol ink prints don’t last as long and will easily crack/peel the more you wash and/or dry it.
Screenprinting and digital printing are both fabric printing methods that you can use to create custom t-shirts, hats, bags, aprons-- really any type of screen printed or digitally printed items. While screenprinting is the more traditional method, digital printing has become popular in recent years because it"s cheaper and more environmentally friendly. But how do they compare? Read on to learn about the similarities and differences between screenprinting vs. digital printing!
The screen printing process is a fabric printing method that uses a screen to transfer ink onto a substrate (ie. your garment). A screen is made up of a mesh fabric that"s covered in an impermeable substance, such as vinyl. The design is then created by drawing on the screen with a squeegee. Ink is then forced through the screen and onto the substrate, leaving the screen clean and the garment covered with ink. The screens for a screenprint have a maximum print area of 22" x 24".
Digital Printing, also called direct to garment printing (DTG) or all-over sublimation, uses a printer instead of a screen to transfer ink onto a substrate. The digital files or digital image(s) are sent directly from your computer to an inkjet printer that prints on fabric using a digital printing process. Because there"s no screen involved, digital printing is able to print much more detailed and accurate designs than traditional screen printing.
Digital Printing is also more versatile because you either print on specific placements or choose to print a repeated/ allover print onto the fabric yardage. Kind of like making wallpaper. You would print the wallpaper first-- so that if there"s a seam, it just doesn"t awkwardly get cut off or stop, but continues seamlessly into the seam. Then, you would cut and sew the fabric with the printed roll of material.
- Digital prints look more professional than screenprinted designs because your design is printed directly onto the garment-- resulting in sharper lines that don"t fade over time
Screenprinting is the more affordable option of the two fabric printing methods. The cost of screenprinting is determined by the number of colors in your design, while digital printing is a flat fee per print. So, if you have a complex design with a wide range of colors, digital printing will be more affordable than screenprinting. However, if you have a simpler design with just one or two colors, digital printing will be cheaper.
Now that you know the differences between screenprinting and digital printing, which type of printing is right for you? Here are a few things to consider when deciding whether to screenprint or digitally print your garments:
So, what"s the verdict? Screenprinting or digital printing? It really depends on your needs and what you"re looking for in a printed garment. If you have any questions about screenprinting or digital printing, feel free to send us your questions at hello@bommestudio.com.
Printing is calculated at $3.50 per yard and requires a 500-yard roll, ($1750). For context, 500-yards will provide you with enough fabric for ~250 sweatshirts/hoodies.
Please note that the costs above are only for the printing servicesand does not include the price of your fabric. If you find a more competitive price for printing, you"re more than welcome to handle it outside of our studio and bring us the printed fabric to work with during your project.
Most of us have a collection of screen printed shirts and t-shirts representing everything from company uniforms and our old soccer team to a fundraising walk that we may have participated in a number of years ago.
Screen printing really isn’t that much of a mysterious process. In this blog article our EZ Corporate Clothing screen printing specialists will explain the screen printing process in detail.
Whether it"s professional branding, a drawing done on a brown paper bag, or some image you saw onPinterest, screen printing all starts with the design artwork. Even if all you"re creating is a new logo, you still need to think about creative elements like colors and fonts. What do you want your logo or custom screen printed design to convey?
Once you have something designed, it"s time to send it to our screen printing specialists! Either scan your drawing or send us the link to that beautiful design that you saw on the Internet.
The next step is where we take over. From your original design or logo, we"ll create a digital file that we can then print on vellum paper. The vellums look kind of crazy when they"re printed; they"re almost like a negative of your design. They look this way because the color is separated the way it will need to be once we get to the next step: screen creation.
Screens are comprised of a metal frame with an acrylic fabric tightly stretched over it. The vellum paper from step three is attached to the screens and then exposed to an intense light (called an exposure unit) for a very specific amount of time that depends on the artwork.
Once the exposure time is up, the screens are hosed down to so that the areas that will appear as blank on the finished garment are washed away. The areas that remain are where the ink will be pressed onto the garment.
A screen printing machine looks like an octopus. For each color used on the garment being printed an "arm" needs to be set up with a screen. The screen print technician will then register the screens to make sure each print lines up perfect with the next so you end up with one cohesive, flawless design. Then, we"ll run a test print.
The screen print technician will put the garments on the flat, platter-like surface of the screen printing machine. Each color is then printed one at a time as the garment moves around the machine, kind of like a merry-go-round and assembly line all rolled into one.
Once a garment has been screen printed, it"s placed into a very hot, conveyor belt-type dryer. It"s very important that the garment stay flat during this process so the ink doesn"t run.
We hope this simple analysis of the step by step screen printing process has been helpful. See also our blog article on 5 Screen Printing Myths Busted!
Whether you need screen printed pocket t shirts, polo shirts, or promotional items like printed bags and sweatshirts, when you are ready to get started with your company clothing order, give our screen printing specialists a call toll free at 1-877-304-1899!
Since 1989, EZ Corporate Clothing has been one of America"s largest, full-service corporate clothing suppliers, offering a variety of men"s and women"s custom screen-printed and embroidered corporate apparel, along with other specialty promotional items, gifts, and merchandise to choose from. Our specialty includes custom screen-printing and logo embroidery on corporate hats, jackets, hoodies, crewneck sweatshirts, polo shirts, tees, and other corporate clothing items for mens, womens, and youth which can be purchased individually and in clothing package specials.
How much money have you or your business allocated for spending? You can use as many colors as you wish for t-shirt screen printing. Yet, having more than one color will raise the price of each garment. This is why we often recommend choosing one to three colors for your t-shirt design.
Otherwise, the cost of your custom t-shirts may exceed your budget. As a t-shirt printing company, we can help you balance your budget with the integrity of your design.
We use custom screens that are negative images of your design (like stencils, but for t-shirts). After we place the screen over the t-shirt, we squeegee the ink through so it only dyes the exposed fabric. If your design calls for more than one color, we use more than one screen. One screen for each color.
It takes time, money, and effort to create custom screens for t-shirt printing. This is why needing more than one screen for your design will increase the cost of your custom tees. It’s also why we only allow bulk orders for t-shirt screen printing.
The more custom t-shirts you order, the lower the cost of each garment. This is because no matter how many custom tees you order, you"ll always pay the same start-up costs for the screens we make.
Worried about the cost of making custom t-shirts? You"re not alone. Most of our customers have a budget in mind when they see us for t-shirt screen printing. Check out our list of tips to learn how to save money on your next order of custom t-shirts.
Simplify your t-shirt design as much as possible. Sometimes it helps to remember the specific purpose of your custom t-shirts. Are you raising awareness for a cause? Do you want your employees to feel more connected to your company"s brand? Also, remember that your message can get lost in too many details. People are more likely to remember simple, yet bold designs.
Ask yourself how many colors you need to maintain the design integrity of your custom tees. Also, remember that you can use the color of the t-shirt itself to help you cut down how many ink colors you need. Does your logo use white? If so, you can print your design on white t-shirts to reduce how many ink colors you need.
Like we mentioned before, the more shirts you order, the cheaper they will all be in the end. Depending on the design, you can always save extra shirts for the future to use as giveaway items or for recently hired employees to wear.
You can easily save money by switching from a darker shirt color to a lighter one like white or heather grey. Why is this? These colors are typically priced lower anyway with white being the cheapest. The switch may also cut down on production time depending on the ink colors used.
We recommend taking advantage of our in-house graphic design services. Our graphic designers can help you create the best t-shirt design for your company, group, or cause. As a t-shirt printing company, you can trust our years of experience.
We can also adapt your design to fit on water bottles, tote bags, and other promotional items. This is one of the benefits of working with our in-house graphic designers. They know how to take your designs to the next level so you can promote your brand to the right people.
DTG vs. screen printing, the battle between these two printing methods has been raging for some time now. It is long overdue to bury the hatchet by weighing their pros, cons, and finally give a verdict on which works best for dropshipping and print on demand.
Whether you’re a tireless entrepreneur driven by success, an artist longing to showcase your creative flair to the world, or simply someone who’s finally ready to dip their toes into a more adventurous fare than a 9-to-5 job, choosing the right printing method can make or break your apparel business.
In this article, we’ll help you to fine-tune your knowledge of both direct-to-garment (also known as DTG) and screen printing. We’ll answer all of your questions about their differences – quality, cost, durability, and other features – so you can choose what suits your business the best.
Screen printing is a tried-and-true printing technique where a mesh stencil is used to transfer ink onto fabric. It is one of the oldest printing methods that dates back thousands of years. However, it only exploded into modern culture during the 1960s with the popularity of Andy Warhol, the printed t-shirt trend, and the invention of multicolor screen-printing machines.
This ancient art technique is also known as silk screening, because it was first intended to stencil silk. The printer creates a stencil on a fine mesh screen, then pushes the ink through it to achieve the desired outcome – imprinting the design on a chosen garment.
This method requires the use of thick inks, causing them to lay on top of the material rather than soaking into the fabric. If you want to create multicolored designs, the ink has to go on in several layers, with a different stencil for each ink. Unfortunately, here lies the problem – the more layers your design has, the longer it will take to print it.
Direct-to-garment printing, or DTG, is a printing process that involves spraying ink onto a garment using specialized or modified inkjet technology, then waiting for it to soak into the fabric. Although it’s only been around for about 20 years, it has revolutionized the fashion industry in ways that nobody expected. Currently, DTG printing is in a rapid growth phase and has proved to be one of the print industry’s most resilient sectors during the Covid pandemic.
With direct-to-garment printing, very little setup time is required. This means that it’s easy to print one-off items. If you have an online store connected to a print provider that offers DTG printing, the process is smooth and simple. How exactly does DTG printing work? As soon as your customer buys from your digital store, which is integrated with a print-on-demand platform like Printify, the manufacturer is instantly notified and begins the printing process. After, the order will be packed and shipped directly to your customer.
With Printify’s print-on-demand services andglobal DTG print provider network, it’sreally simple to get started. There’s no minimum order quantity and no up-front investment is required. Basically, you can start printing and selling your own one-of-a-kind items in no time at all.
DTG and screen printing are two of the most common and popular methods for custom apparel printing. DTG uses a specialized fabric printer – a bit like computer inkjet printing – to spray the ink into a garment, while screen printing layers the ink on the surface of the fabric.
Both of these printing methods produce high-quality prints, however, each of these has its pros and cons. Their capabilities differ, and it’s up to you to choose the one that works best for your apparel business. Let’s take a look at each of these methods in depth and see what they’re all about.
Whether you intend to print on custom t-shirts, hoodies, custom sweatshirts, or any other type of apparel, the quality of the print is of paramount importance to satisfy your customer’s expectations.
With DTG printing, however, you can enjoy the same high-quality prints with less cost. This method allows you to print highly detailed designs and photorealistic images which look as good or even better than when other printing processes – such as screen printing – are used.
When it comes to printing for profit, DTG print offers several advantages and is the go-to printing technique for designers, creatives, and otherprint-on-demand entrepreneurs.
In our modern throw-away society, people find durable goods refreshing. Well-made products that are built to last and can stand the test of time are becoming increasingly valuable and, sad to say, rare.
If care instructions are followed correctly, DTG prints can withstand over 50 washes and still remain acceptable to your customers. Screen printing lasts anywhere from 25 to 50% longer and is ideal for something like sports or business uniforms, but if you’re looking to sell custom t-shirts or other custom apparel – DTG prints are the way to go.
In the printing industry, details are the smallest parts of the design, such as textures, fine lines, or tiny elements. When it comes to details, DTG printing is an undisputed champion. It is usually recommended for full-color designs with lots of details like illustrations, photographs, gradients, etc. Screen-printed garments, however, have dots that are visible to the naked eye, whereas with DTG printing, the resolution is phenomenal – you can’t see them at all.
By using direct-to-garment printing, you can remain confident that your extremely detailed and intricate designs will come out of the printer just as you intended.
You can pick any product from our catalog, add your design, and see how it will look in real life. For better results, make sure to follow recommendations on file size, colors, and a few other things briefly explained in our Design Guide.
With green living on the rise, the sustainability of the products we use becomes more important. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to know that print on demand is one of the most sustainable business models out there. A bit of a game-changer, this one. Did you know that92 million tonsof textile go to waste every year?Printing a one-off product saves money, avoids overproduction and waste, and helps the environment.
When compared to its counterpart,DTG printing is a more sustainable option. Why? Because using DTG printing, the product is made only after it has been bought. It happens automatically, too. DTG printing machines typically use environmentally-friendly, water-based inks, and the process itself is highly energy-efficient.
With screen printing, however, overproduction is common. It generally works well with printing items in bulk quantities, which, unless sold, may end up in landfills or be burned.
A lot of DTG printing machine manufacturers have sustainability in mind. They develop digital printing solutions that are more environmentally friendly than both traditional and other digital printing methods in the industry.
One of the main reasons people choose DTG as their favorite on-demand printing method is that there’s no minimum order quantity. You can order as few or as many items as you like. DTG printing is perfect for small orders. It is a great t-shirt printing method, too. Additionally, the prices are always reasonable, and the process is hassle-free.
Things are a little bit more difficult with screen printing. A lot of third-party print services have minimum order requirements that can be from 5 to 100 items. If you’re just starting out or simply want to experiment with new designs, screen printing makes the whole process rather time consuming and difficult. You just might find yourself overwhelmed by the cost and suffocating under piles of clothing.
When it comes to the speed of production, DTG printing can’t keep pace with screen printing. However, screen printing requires a setup time that offsets its speed. That’s why screen printing works best for bulk orders – once the stencils are created, the production moves ahead quickly. Some screen printing presses can print up to 1,080 pieces an hour.
Even though DTG printing is slower than other printing methods, it’s perfect for print on demand. You can print just one, and if the product does not sell, you can replace it or discontinue without worrying about inventory. This method is great for those who want to enter a new market with a low budget.
Whether you’re just playing with the idea ofstarting a clothing lineor thinking about scaling your existing business, you need to choose a printing method that will meet your business goals in the most cost-effective way.
There are a few things you need to remember. If you want your products to be screen printed, be ready to order in bulk. The setup makes screen printing too expensive – and inefficient – for low-quantity orders with lots of colors. The final price of your order is also influenced by the number of colors and screens that are needed to print it. Unfortunately, this is how screen printing works – it can be financially challenging. As always, all of these details should be discussed with your print provider.
DTG printingreduces the setup costs for a single piece of garment and allows for an easy and affordable production process. But not for the manufacturer, mind you. Their costs are astronomical. It’s not a concern for a regular print-on-demand user. With this method, you can print a single product and still make a profit.
As with every new technology, there are a lot of unknowns, but we hope that this overview gives insight into the modern DTG printing method. By comparing it to its older counterpart, screen printing, you can pick the one that suits your business best. Before making the final decision, be sure to think about your needs. They include, but are not limited to:
In one word? Choose your printing method wisely. It is not an easy task, but to make it easier we’ve prepared a brief summary of the advantages and disadvantages of these printing methods.
AseCommerce continues to surgeand print on demand becomes increasingly profitable, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to find a printing method that’s right for you.
Screen printing, on the other hand, is perfect for those who are ready to order in bulk, have a bit of capital, and storage space. Here are its main advantages:
If you’re interested in opening your own print-on-demand eCommerce store, entering a new market, or scaling your existing business, DTG printing is the way to go.