What is the Advantage and Disadvantage of Custom Sublimated Polo Shirts

When it comes to making your jersey impressive, choosing between sublimation and embroidery is more than just picking prints—it's about defining your style on the field or court. Sublimation brings vibrant, all-over designs, while embroidery adds a classic, textured touch. 

If you want to learn more, please visit our website.

As we dive into jersey customization, let's unravel the unique strengths of sublimation and embroidery. Whether you're a player seeking durability or a fan chasing the perfect look, understanding these two techniques is your first step to jersey greatness. 

So, which path will you choose to stitch your story onto the game's fabric? Let's find out.

Sublimation Printing: A Symphony of Colors and Comfort

Sublimation is a modern printing technique that revolutionized the sports apparel industry. Its key highlight is the smooth, embedded, and vibrant finish it provides. Your team's logo, text, and artwork become integral to the fabric, ensuring long-lasting, eye-catching designs that won't fade or peel off.

Sublimation printing stands out for its practical advantages in customization. It’s all about vibrant, all-over designs that won’t break the bank, especially for larger prints. With sublimation, you get a broad color palette without added expenses. What sets it apart is the precision it offers.

Sublimation Process

Sublimation involves using a heat press as part of the printing process. It is a method where heat and pressure are applied to a specially designed transfer paper containing sublimation ink.

The printed transfer paper is placed on the fabric, and both are subjected to high heat using a heat press machine. Heat pressing ensures that the sublimation ink gets absorbed into the fabric. It is a crucial component in the sublimation printing process to achieve the desired outcome on polyester-based materials.

Advantages of Sublimation Printing

Sublimation printing brings benefits, making it the go-to choice for personalized sports gear. Let’s delve into the practical benefits of sublimation printing:

• Vibrant Colors: Sublimation allows for a full spectrum of colors, enabling you to create striking designs that represent your team's spirit and identity.

• Unlimited Design Options: Whether you have intricate patterns or bold graphics in mind, sublimation can bring your vision to life with stunning clarity and precision.

• Performance and Comfort: Since the ink becomes a part of the fabric, sublimated sports gear offers exceptional comfort and flexibility, allowing athletes to move freely and confidently on the field.

• Durability: With the design ingrained into the fabric, sublimation ensures that your sports gear can withstand the most demanding challenges and countless washes.

Embroidery: Timeless Masterpieces with Stitched Designs

Embroidery has been a favored method for custom sports apparel for generations. It is a timeless choice for those seeking a classic and durable touch to their customized items. Its advantages stem from a blend of tradition and quality craftsmanship.

Embroider brings an elegant and tactile dimension to designs, capturing attention with a sophisticated 3D effect. The stitching process ensures lasting resilience, making it an ideal option for those looking for durability in their customized apparel.

Embroidery Process

Embroidery is a decorative technique that involves stitching a design onto fabric using a needle and thread. The process of embroidery typically follows these steps:

Design Creation: The process begins with creating a design that will be embroidered. This design can be a logo, pattern, or any desired image.

Digitization: Once the design is finalized, it must be translated into a digital format for the embroidery machine to understand. This process is called digitization, where the procedure is converted into a series of commands that control the embroidery machine.

Stabilizing the fabric: Before starting the embroidery, the fabric is stabilized using an embroidery hoop or backing material. This ensures the fabric remains taut and doesn't pucker during stitching.

Thread selection: The appropriate thread colors are chosen based on the design. Multiple threads can create various colors and textures within the structure.

Machine setup: The embroidery machine is set up with the digitized design, and the selected thread colors are loaded into the machine.

Embroidery process: The machine begins stitching the design onto the fabric according to the digitized instructions. The needle passes through the material, creating stitches that form the design. The machine moves the fabric in different directions to achieve the desired pattern.

Trimming and finishing: Once the embroidery is complete, any excess thread is trimmed, and finishing touches may be applied to enhance the appearance of the design.

Embroidery design can be done by hand, but modern embroidery often involves computerized machines that can automate the process, making it more efficient for mass production and intricate designs. The result is a textured, three-dimensional design that adds a personalized and sophisticated touch to various textiles, including jerseys, sports apparel, accessories, and promotional items.

Advantages of Embroidery

Let’s explore the advantages of embroidery and understand how the creation of sports jerseys blends with quality and style.

• Distinguished look: The textured and tactile feel of embroidered designs adds an elegant touch to your team's gear, making it stand out on and off the field.

• Durability: The stitching and sewing ensure that your team's logos, numbers, and names are securely attached, promising long-lasting and durable apparel.

• Personalization: Embroidery allows for detailed customization, making it perfect for individual player names and numbers on jerseys.

• Comfort: We use extremely soft and comfortable fabric to sew your roster and artwork onto the apparel, ensuring your players stay at ease during the game.

Embroidery elevates the game of customization through its time-honored technique. Whether it's about showcasing embroidered logos on uniforms or crafting intricate embroidery designs, stitching brings a touch of elegance that stands out.

Each stitch weaves a story, creating a visually appealing design. The durability of embroidered elements is a testament to the craftsmanship and makes it a reliable choice for those seeking longevity in their customized items.

Embroidery is more than a design and art—a meticulously stitched masterpiece that adds a sophisticated touch to any garment or accessory.

Photo by Lucas Andrade

Weighing the Pros and Cons

Choosing between embroidery and sublimation printing involves weighing the pros and cons of each method to ensure the perfect fit for your customization needs. 

Cost

Cost is a pivotal factor, and while embroidery often entails flat-rate costs, sublimation printing introduces variable expenses tied to the number of colors in the design. Sublimation proves cost-effective for larger designs, whereas embroidery's 3D, weighty designs offer a sophisticated touch that may cost more but ensures lasting durability.

Durability

Durability becomes a decisive aspect, where embroidery's stitched-in designs showcase resilience against wear and tear, making it a top choice for long-lasting logos. Despite its precision, sublimation faces potential damage if subjected to harsh washing or ironing. Each technique has its design limitations, with sublimation offering versatility for almost any design within reason, while embroidery excels in producing intricate logos.

Fabric type

Sublimation excels on polyester-based materials, seamlessly integrating vibrant designs into fabrics like poly-knit and poly-mesh while retaining pro-wick and pro-elite performance qualities. The process ensures that the designs become a part of the fabric, allowing for comfortable, breathable, and durable sports jerseys that meet the specific needs of athletes.

Application

Consider the application, too. Embroidery shines on heavier garments, perfect for quality uniforms, but thin materials might not fare well. On the other hand, sublimation finds its forte in stretchy clothes, ideal for vibrant, more prominent logos without causing fabric tension.

In this embroidery vs. sublimation showdown, the choice depends on your budget and specific needs. Whether you prioritize durability, intricate designs, or versatility, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each method ensures you make an informed decision for your customized garments or accessories.

Choosing the Right Printing Method

Ultimately, the choice between sublimation and embroidery depends on your team's preferences and the look you wish to achieve. Sublimation is perfect for teams seeking vibrant, bold, and performance-oriented designs, while embroidery brings a touch of timeless elegance and customization.

Whichever method you choose, Sports Gear Swag has you covered with top-quality printing options for all your sports apparel and accessories. Check our online platform to explore the full range of customization possibilities. Let's gear up for victory together!

You feel all excited about turning your own designs into something tangible like a T-shirt. That sounds great in your head but in reality, you have no idea where to start. When searching on the internet, it’s likely that you will meet with many new terms about printing techniques, which makes it even more confusing. 

In your research, you are likely to encounter sublimation and screen printing – they are among the most popular printing methods and the top choices for many people to print on apparel, and even accessories or decoration products. 

Don’t worry if you don’t know what they mean. In this article, we will run through all the key aspects of these two printing techniques, the similarities and differences as well as help you find the right printing method for you and your business.

Before going at length about the differences between sublimation and screen printing, let’s see the key differences between these two printing techniques:

• Sublimation is what you need to produce an all-over print design as it allows garments from seam to seam. Screen printing is suitable for printing on a selected smaller area.
• Sublimation blends inks with fabric, creating a seamless print, while the screen prints will sit on top of the fabric.
• Sublimation is compatible with polyester fabric only, while screen printing is suitable for printing on cotton.
• Sublimation looks best on white fabric while screen printing stands out in every fabric color.

What is sublimation printing and how does it work

Sublimation printing is a type of heat transfer printing, which means it doesn’t print directly onto the material but uses a special transfer paper to transfer the prints. 

What makes this printing technique different from other types of transfer printing is the usage of special ink. This ink, under high temperature, will turn into gas and soak into the fiber of the material, making the design part of the item itself, rather than sitting on top like a sticker.

How Sublimation Printing Works

That’s a simple explanation of the sublimation printing process. Let’s dive a little deeper into the process and see how it works in reality:

• You print your slick design onto special transfer paper with a dye-sub printer filled with specialized sublimation inks.
• Lay the sublimation paper on top of a shirt or other material. Then place them together in a heat press and crank that sucker up to scorching temps while clamping down hard.
• Now here’s where the magic happens! That extreme heat turns the inks into a gas that seeps into the fabric. The pressure from the heat press squishes it in deep too.
• And just like that, after the shirt cools off, your design is now perfectly melted into the fibers! So it’s not sitting on top like a normal print – it becomes part of the shirt. That’s why the colors pop so nice and vivid-like, and they’ll never crack or peel.

You can take a look at how the sublimation process works at Merchize factory.

Pros and Cons of Screen Printing:

Pros Cons

• Vibrant Colors
• No Feel on Fabric
• Durability
• All-over Print Capability

• Limited Material Compatibility
• Requires Light-colored Base
• Set-up for Single or Short Runs

What is screen printing and how does it work

Screen printing has been around forever – we’re talking thousands of years! It started as a way to add designs to silk. The basic idea is you make a stencil on a fine mesh screen, then use a squeegee to push ink through the open parts of the stencil. The ink prints the design onto the shirt or fabric underneath. It’s an old-school technique but started booming in more modern times when artists like Andy Warhol invented the coolest printed shirts in the s.

The mechanism behind this printing technique is super simple and straightforward.

To print a design, you make a stencil on a fine mesh screen, then use a squeegee to push ink through the open parts of the stencil onto the shirt or fabric underneath. For multi-colored prints, you need a separate stencil screen for each color. The printer layers them one by one.

How Screen Printing Works

The process today works much the same but with better tools.

Here’s how to create POD products using screen printing: 

• Print the design on a see-through acetate film. Then, pick a mesh screen that fits the fabric and the design’s complexity.
• Put a special light-sensitive coating on the mesh. After that, place the film on the mesh and shine a bright light on it. The light makes the coating hard where there’s no design. Get rid of the extra liquid, and it leaves a kind of outline on the mesh screen, like a stencil.
• Put the screen on a printing machine over the fabric, then lower it down to touch the fabric for the inking part. The ink is pressed through the mesh outline, printing the design on the fabric. Do this for each piece of fabric, let it dry, and check to make sure it looks just right. 

The inks sit on top of the material instead of bonding inside it too. This is different from sublimation which injects ink into the fibers. But screen printing has the advantage of working on all types of fabrics using some seriously bold, vibrant inks!

Dreamfox Product Page

This video helps you better visualize the process of screen printing.

Pros and Cons of Screen Printing

Pros Cons

• Versatile Material Use
• Vibrant and Opaque Colors
• Cost-effective for Large Orders
• Durability

• Complex Setup
• Limited Color Range
• Thick Ink Layer
• Environmental Impact

Comparison between sublimation vs screen printing

Finding the most suitable printing method is an important issue to consider when running a print on demand clothing business. In this section, we’ll dive into the differences between sublimation vs screen printing and explain the pros and cons of each. 

1. Print Quality

When it comes to print quality, screen printing nails it with vibrant, eye-catching colors and bold designs. It works best for logos, texts, and simple graphics. But printing complex multi-color images like photos can be tricky with all those separate stencil layers.

Sublimation also churns out some gorgeous prints though, with colors just as sharp and vivid. Plus it can easily handle detailed designs or photographs with lots of different hues since there’s no color separation. The ink just flows freely into the fabric.

So if you just need to spotlight text or simple logos, the classic screen printing never goes wrong. On the other hand, if you have a thing for photo prints, sublimation is the smart move. 

Sublimation Screen Printing Color vibrancy Sublimation is known for extremely vibrant colors because the ink becomes part of the material, allowing it to blend seamlessly. It’s especially vibrant on white or light-colored fabrics. Screen printing also offers vivid colors, but it’s achieved through layers of ink on the surface of the fabric. The colors are opaque and bold, but not as integrated into the material as sublimation. Multi-color printing Sublimation can print a wide range of colors in one pass, including smooth color transitions and gradients. Screen printing requires separate screens for each color, making it more difficult to print multi-colored designs.

Gradients and color transitions are even harder to achieve.

Complicate details Sublimation is better suited for intricate or highly detailed designs because it can produce fine details without limitations caused by screen mesh sizes. Screen printing can also handle detailed designs, but the level of intricacy is limited by the stencil and mesh screen. Very fine details might be lost or become less clear. Photorealistic print  Sublimation is excellent for photo-realistic images due to its ability to print detailed gradients and subtle color transitions. Screen printing can handle photo-realistic images but requires specialized techniques like half-toning, which may not achieve the same level of detail and smooth transitions as sublimation. Best for It works best for logos, texts, and simple graphics. Complicated designs with intricate details, special effects, or photographs. 

2. Durability

When it comes to print durability, sublimation wins hand down.

In screen printing, the ink just stays on top of the fabric instead of really soaking in. That means the more colors you add, the thicker the layer becomes. The plastisol ink makes the prints decently durable, but after a bunch of spins in the washing machine, it might start cracking or peeling at the edges, and the colors fade a little.

Sublimation prints go the distance though. The ink blends tight with the fabric fibers when it turns to gas and sinks in. So it basically becomes one with the shirt instead of sitting on top. This makes the colors stay bold and beautiful wash after wash – no fading, cracking, or peeling!

Now screen printed shirts can still hold up nice if you take care of them. But sublimation definitely wins for long-lasting, durable prints. The colors lock in and don’t budge! So if you prioritize longevity for your merch, sublimation is probably the way to go. Screen printing works great for basic designs though, and gets the job done on a budget!

3. Special effects  

Screen printing opens up a world of possibilities for special effects. With this method, you can create unique printing effects simply by playing around with the ink. You can use glitter, metallic, puff, and even glow-in-the-dark inks to make the print stand out. That’s not all. Many screen printing tricks allow you to produce highly textured and unique effects like cracked, bubble stretch, cork, and leather, for example.

On the other hand, sublimation doesn’t offer you much space to play around with the inks to create extreme effects like with screen printing. However, with the ability to translate the design with high precision, sublimation can excel in showing gradient effects and high-quality photorealistic prints, which are impossible to achieve with screen printing.

If you want special effects with textured prints, screen printing will help you achieve that. But if you just want to simply transfer a complex design with intricate details and vibrant colors, without needing textural changes, sublimation makes a better choice.

4. Design Complexity 

Sublimation printing is the best when it comes to delivering prints with high complexity. It can show your intricate designs in perfect detail, even if it’s gradient or photo. 

Sublimation is better used for complex multi-color and photographic prints since there’s no color separation. From the basic ink colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, sublimation printers can produce a huge spectrum of colors. This makes blending precise tones for gradients and photos super consistent.

On the other hand, Screen printing wins at simple designs with just a color or two. For example, a classic logo T-shirt with solid, bold lines and one or two colors. Screen printing handles this easily, giving you crisp lines and solid coverage.

But things slow down and get costlier when you print more colors since each one needs its own screen layer. While it’s not entirely impossible to create a gradient effect with screen printing, the process is extremely time-consuming and complex. 

Screen printing in the process

5. Materials 

Screen printing is more suitable for natural fibers, such as cotton or silk, as the ink adheres and holds on decently through washes. And with specialty inks, you can print on all types of materials – polyester, sure – but also paper, wood, metal, and plastic. 

Conversely, sublimation printing jives well with fabrics that contain a polyester blend, nylon, spandex, lycra – you name it. Cotton can work too, but sublimation makes magic happen on those synthetic performance fabrics. Beyond shirts, sublimation is a good choice for printing photo mugs, cases, ceramic tiles, and even coasters as the smooth, polymer surfaces grasp the ink beautifully.

6. Environmental impact

Screen printing often relies on plastisol inks which can be harsh on the planet since they contain some toxic chemicals that won’t break down. Ordering shirts in bulk saves money but risks wasted stock if your designs don’t sell out. Not ideal.

However, some screen printers can use water-based inks instead which are more eco-friendly. And smart product planning helps minimize leftover merch that ends up in landfills.

On the other hand, sublimation printing uses less natural resources like water than other decoration methods. The ink itself is non-toxic too. And production aims to recycle fabric scraps, like sewing leftover T-shirt material into funky headbands!

So both methods can take steps to go green. Screen printing just needs some extra care when selecting inks and managing inventory. Sublimation works clean right from the start. Either way, our planet thanks you for prioritizing eco-friendly printing!

7. Quantity required 

Sublimation printing can efficiently produce small customized batches or large bulk orders with equal ease. Since the process is highly automated, the printer can accommodate single orders up to hundreds without intensive additional labor. This makes sublimation well-suited for print on demand fulfillment models that print products as orders are received rather than pre-stocking inventory.

Screen printing involves more manual preparation like creating custom stencils. Therefore, most screen printers prefer large bulk orders of around 25+ units to maximize workflow efficiency and cost benefits. For the upfront stencil setup and labor time, optimizing high-volume runs reduces the overall cost per printed item.

In summary, if your business model requires flexibility to profitably print 1-2 shirts at a time or scale to big numbers quickly based on viral demand, sublimation may be better aligned to that need. But for businesses focused squarely on high-volume production runs to fulfill wholesale or branded orders, screen printing provides economies of scale.

8. Price

Screen printing means taking the time to mix inks, make stencils, and manually print each shirt. Not very practical to fire up all that setup for a few shirts. Bulk orders around 25+ make it worthwhile, lowering the cost per tee. But overordering shirts risks wasted dough and excess stock. So screen printing thrives on high volume runs rather than fast on-demand jobs.

Sublimation is like a custom T-shirt factory on demand! Since heat presses and sublimation printers automate the decorating process, it takes the same effort to make 1 or 100 shirts. No stencils, no mess, no fuss! This flexibility keeps small batch costs reasonable while allowing instant scaling if a design goes viral. And you only order blank shirts as needed so no leftover stock. Perfect for printing exactly what’s ordered exactly when it’s ordered!

If pumping out stacks of shirts is the name of your game, ride that screen printing train all the way to Bulk Discount town! But for low minimums and agile on-demand fulfillment, sublimation is on point!

If you have difficulties remembering all the information above, we’ve got a handy cheat sheet for you! Here’s a side-by-side comparison of what each one’s got. 

Criteria Sublimation Printing Screen Printing Print Quality and Durability High-resolution, photo-realistic prints

Durable, long-lasting

Embedded into fabric fibers

Excellent print quality

Durable, vibrant colors

May fade over time

Performance / Color and Finish (Special Effects) Limited to all-over prints

No texture or raised effects; Difficult to achieve special effects

Versatile for various textures and finishes

Can achieve specialty inks and effects

Color Diversity Unlimited color options

Full-color spectrum

Limited color options

Spot color printing

Design Complexity Ideal for complex and intricate designs

Gradient effects

Suitable for simpler designs

Limited gradient capabilities

Customization Full customization

Individualized prints on each item

Limited customization

Set-up required for each color

Fabric and Materials Best suited for polyester fabrics, limited to light colors Works on various fabrics, including dark colors Environmental Impact Low waste as inks are absorbed

Minimal use of water

More waste in screen preparation

Requires more chemicals

Maintenance Low maintenance

No cracking or peeling

May require touch-ups over time

Prone to cracking

Quantity Cost-effective for small to medium quantities Economical for large quantities

Setup costs for each color

Price Higher cost for small quantities

Lower for larger runs

Economical for large quantities

Higher for small runs

The bottom line

And there you have it – the colorful clash between sublimation vs screen printing! Both techniques offer high-quality and eye-catching prints in their own way.

Sublimation fuses ink into fabric for soft, breathable prints with vibrant colors that won’t fade or peel over time. Awesome for athletic gear and performance wear! Screen printing lays ink boldly on the surface for a classic feel and endless creative freedom. Perfect for artistic flair on T-shirts and paper!

For print on demand businesses, sublimation brings efficient digital printing with no minimum orders. Choose screen printing if high volume wholesale deals are your goal!

For more information, please visit Custom Sublimated Polo Shirts.