27/03/2010 by admin.

If you are planning an event for your company and want to give something away to your customers, a printed t-shirt with a message about your company is a cheap and effective solution.

It might be an outdoor event with lots of staff needing to be recognizable to the customers, again an easy solution is to use printed t-shirts .

As the t-shirts will have a very short life span, sometimes just one day, you do not have to spend a fortune. The rise of the Valueweight t-shirt has come of age with the Fruit of the Looms range. This includes t-shirts in a massive range of colours and sizes for men, women and kids.

For 2010, Fruit of the Loom have increased their range to include 3 new styles, such as long sleeve, fitted shape and v-neck.

This type of t-shirts is positioned perfectly to fill the gap between “cheap and nasty” to “high quality” but too expensive to use as a give away.

So the next time you are planning some form of event for your company, consider t-shirts to make your staff easily recognizable and professional. If you need to produce a give away, the value weight t-shirt makes the perfect medium  for your company message.

Of course it is not just the affordability of the t-shirt. With DTG or Direct to Garment printing you can print the t-shirt with the same flexibility of printing onto a piece of paper, with the added benefit of cheap short runs, because of the low startup charges of DTG.

Posted in valueweight, Fruit of the Loom, T-shirt, DTG printing | 1 Comment »

24/03/2010 by admin.

Result have just brought out a new range of jackets that you can inflate while you are wearing them, by breathing into a tube. The jacket has air pockets built into it that inflate and puff the jacket up in the same way a bird can increase the thermal performance of its feathers by fluffing them up so that more air is trapped in between them.

I think this is a totally brilliant invention. You could go for a hike into the hills and what stared out as a lovely sunny day can turn into a nightmarish cold, wet and windy day. This can happen within the space of an hour, when you could be two or three hours away from shelter. In these conditions temperatures can plummet and before you know it you are suffering from hypothermia.

If you are wearing a new Result Air Down jacket, all you have to do is blow into the tube and your jacket suddenly is able to withstand temperature as low as minus 20 degrees!

Posted in Jacket, Result | No Comments »

11/03/2010 by admin.

Thermocool is a multi-functional evolution of modified cross section fibers, designed for use in the thermo regulated sportswear market. When the athlete is hot the material has good evaporation qualities helping with body temperature lowering. When the athlete is cool the material reduces the exposure to outside temperature, keeping the person warm.

The fantastic technical qualities of the Thermocool fabric keep it at the forefront of this medium.

Posted in sportswear, Thermocool | No Comments »

10/03/2010 by admin.

If ever there was a reason for a t-shirt printing job to go wrong, it is clothing that ends up the wrong size. The manufacturers are partly to blame because for example a large in a Fruit of the Loom is quite different to a large in a Gildan. This problem gets far worse when you get into womens clothing. Different brands have a very different concept of what a size 8 is, according to the age group and demographic their products are aimed at. If they design for the more mature women a dress size 10 could be closer to a dress size 14 of a younger producer.

Of course this is not too much of a problem if you have a shop with a changing room facility. The trouble starts when you have an on-line clothing catalogue. At typical senario would be that a company is having an exhibition with about 20 staff maning the stand. A great deal of effort goes into the t-shirt printing design, so that everyone will look great on the day. Then someones secretary is given the task of collecting all sizes of the staff. This usually is done by either a memo or a phone call requesting their size. Back comes a mish-mash of sizes ranging from 38″ chest to medium and also dress size 14. This either get sent on in its raw entirety to the t-shirt printer or the secretary takes it upon herself to do the conversition.

Finally the member of staff attending the exhibition (usually a man) who was asked their size, did not have a clue what size they were because their wife has bought all their cloths for the last 10 years. He still think he is a medium, when he grew out of being a large last Christmas. I don’t think any man (me included) knows what neck size he is without taking off his shirt!

Of course, come the day of the exhibition when everyone turns up in t-shirts 3 sizes too small or large, it is the t-shirt printing company that gets the blame.

Posted in Gildan, Fruit of the Loom, size | No Comments »

08/03/2010 by admin.

An important side to any t-shirt printing business is school uniform. Most t-shirt business will have a few schools quite local to them and probably have kids of their own that go to one or other of them. With this advantage over competitors there is usually important orders placed every year which we as an industry can ill afford to loose.

The repercussions of the forthcoming general election, where it is widely believed that there will be a new government this time is a source of some concern to our industry.

When the OFT report on school uniforms came out under the Labour government, suggesting that every school should get rid of school uniforms completely, we had to form the Schoolwear Association. This group had great success in convincing MP of the benefits of school specific uniform.

The Conservative view is that they think it is very important that school kids should look smart. Michael Grove has said that although blazers and school ties would not be obligatory they would be very much encouraged.

I think the figure that proves the point is that out of the top 50 best performing schools in this country, only one does not have a school uniform.

Posted in school uniform | No Comments »

02/03/2010 by admin.

Spring is almost upon us, so that means it will soon be the Marathon season! Lots of people and companies from all over the country will be entering themselves into various marathons that are held all over the UK.

The individual or company concerned usually does the marathon for a good cause and that usually means sponsorship, which in turn raises the much needed money for the charity.

The person or team that is taking part on the day has spent the cold winter months training for the big event, rapped up to the eyeballs to keep warm. Now the Spring weather has arrived and temperatures have risen, thoughts turn to the need for a decent running vest.

Unless you are quite sporty or involved in sport through your kids, you may not be aware of the new generation of dry fitting sports wear that is now available. The good old fashioned cotton vest when caught in a shower or just soaked thought with perspiration, starts to hang of you like an old rag, looking terrible and feeling awful. Modern materials have made it possible for the garment to get rid of any moisture and not loose its shape. This sportswear is usually made from some form of Polyester. Gamegear specialize in this type of garment and produce the Cooltex Running Vest.

Gamegear Cooltex Running Vest has a moisture management finish. It has contrasting side panels with flatlock stitching. It is finished with a contrast white V lower hem. The running shirt is made from 100% Polyester and has twin needle stitching in the armholes. The front hem is straight and the back hem is curved.

It comes in White/ Navy and White Grey.

One of the problems with this great new material is that you can not print it using DTG printing, which would give you great versatility of designs that you could use for decoration. This is because the ink used by DTG can not penetrate the material, so it sits on the top of the fabric. When you wash the shirt it comes off!

I can not recommend embroidery either. The stitching goes through the light weight structure of the shirt and gives a rough finish on the inside, which will cause chaffing and discomfort.

Vinyl transfer does a very good job on this type of fabric but is limited in the types of design it can handle.

Posted in Vinyl Transfer, Dry-fit, Running vest, DTG printing, DTG | No Comments »