Transfer

10/02/2009 by admin.

Also known as Digital Transfer or Vinyl Transfer.

This process is based on a very thin vinyl film which comes in a variety of different colours. The film can be placed on a digital plotter that cuts out the shape, and has been created on a design program like Coral Draw or Illustrator.

This technique is ideally suited to logo’s that are based on simple type or silhouette images. For example if your logo is “RAC” or “Honda” then this is the technique for you.

Because the origination is created within a graphics program and goes straight to the plotter, there are no expensive screens or digitization to be done. This means there are no expensive setup charges!

So if you are only after 10 or 20 t-shirts it is quite viable. You can literally phone up the t-shirt printers and say ” give me 20 medium black t-shirts with my company name, printed across the shoulders in red using  Arial bold,” and you would get a nice result.

That is the other point, you can print light colours onto dark garments. The vinyl is totally opaque so white comes up beautifully clean and bright when printed on black or navy blue. The colour will not fade and the vinyl is happy to stretch with the garment.

The material is not actually printed onto the garment. The plotter cuts the shape of the logo out of the vinyl sheet and the excess material is peeled away. This is then pressed into the garment using a special press that applies extreme heat and huge pressure. If this is done properly the end result is as permanent as embroidery. But you constantly come across people who have had bad experiences of the film coming off or the garment or cracking.  Good Transfer printers will guarantee the work for the life of the garment provided you adhere to the recommended washing instruction for the garment.

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