Screen Printing vs. Heat Transfer Vinyl

What is Screen Printing?

Screen printing is a printing technique whereby a mesh is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh apertures with ink, and a reverse stroke then causes the screen to touch the substrate momentarily along a line of contact. This causes the ink to wet the substrate and be pulled out of the mesh apertures as the screen springs back after the blade has passed. One color is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multicolored image or design. – Wikipedia.com

The art of t shirt design is that you can use colored inks as mentioned in the screenprinting description above, or you can use other options like heat transfer vinyl to achieve a unique look.

What is Heat Transfer Vinyl?

Heat transfer vinyl, or HTV for short, is a specialty vinyl that can be used on certain fabrics and materials to create designs and promotional products. It comes in a roll or sheet form with an adhesive backing so it can be cut, weeded, and placed on a substrate for heat application. Heat transfer vinyl is made in single colors and also has special options such as patterned, 

glitter, flocked, holographic, glow-in-the-dark, reflective and 3D puff. – Wikipedia.com

Of course, both screenprinting and heat transfer vinyl are not ideal for non-cloth promotional products like mugs, pens and golf balls, so there exists another way to get your message onto some swag called digital printing. This means of placing a logo or message on the merchandise is much more precise and can be made smaller or bigger with the click of a computer button, so you need to give the largest image file you can of your artwork to make your custom creation look its best.