Which Printing Method is Ideal for Your Cotton Bags?

There are four main printing methods for cotton bags - screen printing, heat transfer, sublimation and digital printing.

Does your artwork have gradient colors? Are there lots of shades,etc? Is the graphic photo-realistic? If yes, you can consider heat transfer printing,digital printing and sublimation.

Today we will talk about the heat transfer.

Heat transfer is a printing process that uses thermal pressure to transfer the patterns on the thermal transfer film directly to the surface of materials. The substrates used for thermal transfer film are mainly PET sheets. After printing patterns on PET sheets, hot melt adhesive which can firmly combines the pattern with materials will be coated on the back of the pattern. Putting PET sheets on the materials and giving pressure. Removes the PET film, and completes the thermal transfer process. It is easy to do at home for a few pieces, but tend to lack durability when compared to the other processes.

Heat transfer can let complex colors be one-time printing completed.With this printing way, the appearance of pattern is full, realistic, and sharp.

Meanwhile, there are some things we should consider. After transferring to the cloth, the breath ability is poor,even after washing. And the feeling is not as soft as the sublimation and digital printing. And what is "printed" on the surface of the cloth is something like a sticker attached to the surface - heat transfer printing has a convex feeling.

This printing way can be use for many products, such as clothing, cloth bags, hats, throw pillows, mugs, tiles, watches, mouse pads, coasters, wall calendars, medals, pennants and hundreds of other products. The technology is mainly used for clothes with extremely high cotton content. All kinds of material colors can be transferred by film.

What's more, there is no mininum order quantity for this printing. But there is a mould cost which will higher the product cost,especially when the quantity is small.

And the cost will be influenced by the printing area. The bigger the printing area, the higher the price will be.

Next time, we will talk about digital printing.