Direct-to-garment printing, or DTG as you will often see it, is a way to decorate items by applying water based inks directly to the item. You are actually dying the image onto the item as the ink is absorbed by the substrate. There are large DTG printers that are essentially your home printer (major brands are Brother and Epson) but much larger and with different inks.
Advantages
No minimums – one of the biggest pain points when people by custom shirts is running into minimums. This is usually because of the labor and time involved in building screens to screen print shirts. But since DTG shirts are usually printed one at a time, there are no minimums to worry about. A shirt is loaded into the printer, The design is queued up and you hit print, just like you would on your printer at home. The design is printed onto the shirt, which is then pressed with heat to cure the ink. Now you have a shirt with the design actually dyed into the fabric of the shirt. I can then print you another, or move onto the next order. No more worries about buying what you don’t need. Gone are the days of having a ton of leftover shirts in sizes no one wants.
Multiple colors at once – screen printing requires a screen to be built for every color in the design. If you want just a few shirts with lots of colors, you could run into some serious screen charges. But since DTG is a digital technology using CMYK inks, it can print up to 16M different colors all at once. That includes gradients and other design techniques that can be complicated for screen printing.
Photographic resolution – sometimes you’ve taken a picture and said I wish I could have that on a shirt. Now you can. DTG prints in true photographic resolution. It is perfect for those birthday or graduation gifts showing someone’s old photo. Bachelor and bachelorette parties are especially fond of being able to print humorous photos on just a few shirts.
Maintain breathability of shirt – my guess is that you have a shirt in your closet that you like, but you also hate it because the design on it is thick and heavy. One of the beauties of DTG is that is a thing of the past. The design just becomes part of the shirt. So that soft shirt you know and love remains soft all the way through.
Nothing to crack or peel – we all have thrown away a shirt because the ink from the screen print has cracked or peeled all the way off. With DTG there is nothing to crack or peel. The design will last as long as the shirt.
Ecofriendly – DTG uses water based inks that are ecofriendly. There is less overall waste in the decorating process. Plus with only needing to print what you need, there are not leftover shirts in sizes people don’t want, that just end up in landfills.
Ability to test new things – if you have a design you think will sell, but aren’t sure, DTG lets you give it a try. Screen print will require minimums and you don’t want to be out of pocket for something that might not work. Since DTG is print on demand, you can offer something and just print what sells. If it looks like a hit, perhaps you will want to shift to screen print to take advantage of cost savings with large quantities.
Personalization – if you want a member or staff person’s name on a shirt, many times it can be tedious or expensive. DTG lets you print whatever is on the screen. So I can print on shirt with a name on the right and logo on the left, all at once. No need to charge extra for the name since it is printing at the same time as the logo.
Not just for shirts – DTG can be used for all sorts of of things too: coozies, bandanas, tote bags and more.
Disadvantages
Color limitations – because DTG is a dying process, it works best on light colored shirts. If you want to decorate a dark colored shirt with DTG, you need a special DTG printer known as DTG-W. That requires pre-treat, a white ink underlay, then the design can be printed. DTG-W is super versatile, but you lose the full breathability and it could also crack and peel. Plus all those steps and extra compounds means higher cost.
Fabric limitations – DTG inks are meant for natural fibers like cotton. Polyester is essentially plastic woven into thread, so water based inks won’t stick to it (hence why poly shirts are often called dry fit). The best and brightest results will be on 100% cotton shirts. If you use a 50/50 blend, it will still look nice. Tri-blends that only have 25% cotton will still work, but will give you a more muted, vintage look. If you want 100% polyester, then dye sublimation will work best. However, you can pre-treat polyester shirts for DTG and use regular DTG printing.
Lower economies of scale – since DTG is a one by one type process, there is labor involved in needing to load, unload and reload the printer. Screen printing has better economies of scale when dealing with large numbers of shirts. However, most DTG providers will be happy to give quantity discounts.
DTG won’t be the perfect solution for everyone. However, it adds another tool to the bench when you are thinking about ways to offer your members new and different apparel options, as well as personalized gifts.