Our branded bags can be personalised in a variety of ways to help create a finished product that truly represents your client’s business. This guide has been designed to share an insight into the processes involved in these branding techniques, sharing everything from cost-effectiveness to final looks.
Screen printing involves pushing ink through a tightly-stretched mesh, which is attached to a frame known as a screen, onto a substrate. The stencil used defines the shape of the design, ensuring only the desired areas are printed.
Once set up, the screen is coated with a photo-sensitive emulsion or film, and a stencil placed on top. The screen is subjected to ultraviolet light, curing the emulsion and all parts of the screen, apart from the design. The screen is then cleaned, which allows the ink to pass through the mesh onto the base material being printed.
This process prints one colour at a time, with new screens and a repeat of the process required each time another colour is added to the design.
Transfer printing is fairly inexpensive to setup and allows you to print bold, full colour, vibrant designs. This means that it’s ideal for those items which cannot be screen printed due to the complexity of the design, product shape or material.
It involves designs being printed onto a flexible non-textile (like vinyl or paper) before being transferred onto the base material with a heat press.
Modern transfer printing processes make a great budget-friendly option for small businesses.
Embroidery is the process of stitching a design into a material using a needle and thread. Unlike printing, embroidery is stitched directly onto the fabric for extra longevity with a textured finish.
It involves converting a chosen design into a file that can be read by an embroidery machine, before being stitched onto the desired product.
Because the cost will depend on how many stitches are required to create a particular design, embroidery is more suited for smaller branding areas.
Dye sublimation allows you to achieve eye-catching, full colour, edge-to-edge finishes.
It involves printing a design onto a specialist transfer paper with water-based inks. The transfer is then lined up with the fabric, and a combination of heat and pressure are applied. This causes the inks to transition from their current solid form into a gas. The inks penetrate into the fibres of the material and permanently bond as they solidify.
The result is a vibrant, long-lasting design that can capture more intricate details.
Lithography/lithographic and offset printing – or litho printing for short – involves etching your design into a coated aluminium printing plate. When the plate is passed through the rollers of the litho press, it collects the ink in layers which combine to create the final colour design. This is then transferred (offset) to rubber blankets or rollers and then to the print media itself.
One of the main advantages of litho printing is the high and consistent image quality it produces. It’s also not limited to the four-colour process, with the option to add special or spot inks where desired.
While the setup cost is more expensive than many other branding techniques, litho printing can work out cheaper per unit where larger order quantities are required.
