Screen printing, DTF, or embroidery — which is right for your order?
August 5, 2026 · Guides
Every week someone walks in with a great design and the same question: how should we put it on the shirt? The honest answer is "it depends" — but it only depends on three things: how many pieces you're ordering, what the art looks like, and how the finished piece will be used.
Screen printing is the workhorse. If you're ordering a dozen or more pieces with art in one to three solid colors — team shirts, company tees, event merch — nothing beats it for durability and price per piece. The ink is laid into the fabric, so it survives job sites and hundreds of washes.
DTF transfers shine when the art is complicated: photographs, gradients, tiny lettering, or a dozen colors at once. There are no color limits and no setup screens, which also makes DTF the budget pick for small runs — even a single shirt.
Embroidery is about presence. Stitched logos on polos, caps, and jackets read as professional in a way ink can't match, and the thread outlasts the garment itself. It's the right call for uniforms, front-of-house staff, and anything a customer shakes hands with.
Not sure? Bring us the art and tell us the quantity — we'll recommend the method we'd use on our own gear, and quote it with no obligation.
Five ways to prep your artwork so your order moves faster
July 22, 2026 · Tips
The fastest orders we run all have one thing in common: the art arrived ready. Here's what "ready" means, in plain language.
1. Send the original file. A vector file (SVG, AI, EPS) or a high-resolution PNG straight from your designer beats a screenshot every time. Screenshots bake in blur and background pixels that we then have to remove.
2. Ask for a transparent background. If the file was exported with a checkerboard behind it, you're set. If your logo lives on a white rectangle, we can strip it — our online designer even does it automatically — but native transparency always comes out cleaner.
3. Think in inches, not pixels. A left-chest logo prints about 3–4″ wide; a full front runs 10–12″. If your file looks crisp at that size on screen, it will print crisp.
4. Tell us the garment color. Black art disappears on black shirts. If you know the garment colors up front, we'll flag anything that needs an outline or a color flip before it becomes a reprint.
5. When in doubt, send it anyway. Half our jobs start with "this is all I have." We've rebuilt logos from business cards and old photos — it's part of the trade. The other half start in our online designer, which handles sizing and backgrounds for you.
