How do you choose the right t-shirt?
You are looking to start or grow your custom apparel business. There are a ton of challenges with choosing the right equipment, making sales, pricing your apparel and so much more. However, a topic not often discussed enough is the apparel you use.
Choosing the right blanks is a core part of your success. This is similar to a great chef. If you learn about great chefs, it’s not just about the best pans and recipes, but also about the best ingredients. More so, it’s about the best ingredients for their particular recipe.
The same thing applies to the custom apparel industry. You must pick the right apparel for your business. The idea of ‘what is the best t-shirt’ is a fallacy, just like the question of ‘what’s the best chocolate for a dessert’. It depends!
In this podcast we will discuss the idea of ‘the best shirt’ with an industry expert Mike Putnam. Mike has been in the apparel industry for over 30 years working in the apparel, sportswear and equipment industries.
Some of the questions we’ll answer in this episode include:
What is the best technology for your custom apparel business?
What type of T-shirts should you sell?
What problems should you expect?
How do you get past these problems?
Why is the idea of a ‘best’ shirt is a bit of a fallacy?
- Your process
- Your Technology
- Your customers’ needs (timeframe, color, quantity)
- The retail price you sell
What technology should you be printing with?
- Screen printing
- Direct to Film
- White Toner
- DTG
- Sublimation
Why do some shirts fail and others succeed in printing (even when they are the “same” material)?
How do you decide the best shirt for your business?
Marc Vila:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Custom Apparel Startups podcast. My name is Mark Vila, and today we’re here to talk about the best T-shirt. Right? When you’re looking to start or grow your custom-apparel business, there’s a ton of challenges out there. Picking the right equipment. What are you going to sell to your customers?
We deal with a lot of phone calls here. Forums that we work with. Facebook groups that we run. Almost every day somebody is asking, “What’s the best technology? What’s the best T-shirt? What should I start making?” We’re going to talk about how that question is a bad question to ask.
The concept of the best technology or the best is a fallacy and that’s why we’ve brought in Mike Putnam. He’s been in the customization/apparel industry for over 30 years. Mike, welcome. Why don’t you tell us a minute on where you started and how you ended up here at ColDesi working with selling some of the latest technology in T-shirt printing?
Mike Putnam:
Sure. My name’s Mike Putnam. I started within the industry, geez, in 1990s or 1986, printing T-shirts over the summer for a local screen printer, Manatee Apparel. Two summers of screen printing followed by working at a wholesale distributor, Goodbye Sportswear in 1990, while I was going to college, I started picking orders. By the time I got into sales, I was making more working in sales than as an X-ray tech, so I went to apparel.
Goodbye was bought in ’99 by Alpha, Alpha bought by Alpha Broder. I left right around that time to go to TSC Apparel, who was Tultex as well and they’re now owned by S&S Activewear. But then went to TSF Apparel, Heritage Sportswear, Delta Apparel, which led me to ColDesi.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. That is why when I thought of what’s the best shirt or what’s the best technology for printing on a shirt, I thought about you. Because you’ve been through, you were on the floor printing shirts to start.
Mike Putnam:
Irregulars. I started in irregulars. For nine years I sold irregulars and closeouts. It was the underbelly of the market, so you had to learn why it was irregular within the fabric before slub. Slub was an accidental invention.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. Tell me about slub. What is that?
Mike Putnam:
Slub within the fabric, it’s designed to have a larger piece within the fabric to simulate a burnout print. It gives the fabric texture without necessarily the holes of it, so it’s just a different fashion and print. It’s almost like a destroyed cap. Those were an accident. Someone had destroyed a cap within the process and said, “I like that cap.” So they started making them destroyed. An accident.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. I think that there’s probably a whole podcast we could do just on those concepts, like what are the different terms people should know and what’s the history of them? But today we’re going to focus on helping folks at the beginning of the understanding of picking the right shirt to either match your technology or picking the right technology to match your shirt.
The reason why we would say, what’s the best T-shirt or what’s the best technology is a fallacy, is it really depends on so many things. If we ask what’s the best T-shirt, maybe you could say like, “Why is the concept of what’s the best T-shirt for decorating or for customizing, why is that a bad question to ask?”
Mike Putnam:
It all comes down to, well, one personal preference. Not all comes down to but personal preference has a lot to play in that and also the process. You typically start in your closet with what is your favorite shirt as far as what the best. But as far as the best, the concept of best, you want the best platform for your print to rest on, so you get the longest wear out of that said print.
Shirts have a play in that. If the fibers stand up, they stand up within the print. It dulls the print. If the knit, if it’s a burnout, you have to print it differently or if it’s a polyester you have to print it differently. It just depends again on your process and personal preference.
Marc Vila:
Right. I would say for using two real-world examples. If your market is doing fishing, surfing, beach wear, all of that, that’s typically going to be people are going to want UPF shirts.
Mike Putnam:
It’s going to be big. It’s going to be a 30, a 40, a 50 and what do those mean? Technically all shirts are UPF, that’s why you have a farmer’s tan. There’s some varying difference of blocking within that process.
Marc Vila:
Your customer, if that’s your customer, might want more blocking because they don’t want to get sunburned.
Mike Putnam:
Correct. Sun related.
Marc Vila:
They might want long sleeve. Even though it’s outdoor hot they want long sleeve. They also want it a little bit lightweight. They want it to dry quickly. That is a very different shirt than say if you’re selling rock band concert tees.
Mike Putnam:
Truly.
Marc Vila:
It’s the opposite shirt.
Mike Putnam:
Completely.
Marc Vila:
Then in addition to that, the technology you’re going to print on needs to be much different, I would say, right?
Mike Putnam:
Certainly.
Marc Vila:
In those two examples, and I’ll try to be as specific as possible so you can give a real-world example just to explain why that concept is. One business you sell stuff for the beach and fishing, so everything is for on a boat, fishing rod in your hand or on the beach with your kids.
Then the other business is you sell to a small rock band type of a venue. It’s a venue that they have small bands come in, probably never more than a 100 or 200 people in the building. They want to have merch that they can sell every single time one of these bands comes through.
Mike Putnam:
Merch is king.
Marc Vila:
Is that right? What would you say about the difference in those technologies for printing, what would you print with, and what type of shirt would you use?
Mike Putnam:
Oh, certainly. On the fishing market with polyesters, you’re either going to be sublimating those fabrics with light colors. It’s going to be a white, a pastel yellow, blue, green, silver, something within those markets that that sublimation print can go on. Sublimation is an out-gassing of the ink basically, that let’s say stains the shirt or re-dyes the shirt. It becomes part of the fabric. Within that, so sublimation or some type of light, typically you would see a screen print within that process. Something that’s going to withstand the elements.
On the rock-band side, you’re looking for more of an intricate print, typically. A lot of times it’s one color. You’re not getting a lot of buildup within those shirts. A lot of times you see burnout shirts, you see the specialty prints within those. Basically you’re not looking for buildup. You want no hand, a water-based feel, or it’s just a single print where it’s a soft hand feel. Something where you’re getting the cheaper side of you’re looking for a higher volume.
Marc Vila:
All right. You may be talking about cotton.
Mike Putnam:
Correct. Typically it’s a cotton shirt. In rock-band style it’s typically either a cotton shirt but times have changed. I mean, the introduction of CVC fabric, which is Chief Value Cotton, you’ll see some type of blend. A 60/40, a 75, some type of blend within the fabric.
And then tri-blends. Those are a little higher priced, but with smaller venues, they’re typically more minded on, I want that person to wear this shirt all the time. Not necessarily get a shirt just because it’s Aerosmith and I got to have it on whatever shirt it’s on. Typically, people buy shirts based on what’s printed on them because they love the print and then they wear it more because they love the shirt.
Marc Vila:
Right. A great point. On that, you’re probably looking at dark colors too. Right?
Mike Putnam:
Historically.
Marc Vila:
Historically.
Mike Putnam:
Black would be the most prominent and that’s-
Marc Vila:
Black would be the most prominent. Right.
Mike Putnam:
For concerts, black and white. You have a stash of black and white and you can print practically anything. With those venues, the smaller the venue it’s more about on demand. Those change on a weekly basis. You’re not going to typically have reaction time to set up. I mean, most bands have merch people or that are selling that already or creating that already. It’s in place but name-dropped with venue is important typically.
Marc Vila:
Right. I guess, less about the actual business structure because that’s probably is true, but more so the concept of what the print is. in this example, and the reason why it’s juxtaposed is for the small venue, rock type of stuff, even if these bands don’t travel, they’re only local-
Mike Putnam:
Or control their own merch nowadays. You’re controlling your own merch and your music is organic, the same with your merch.
Marc Vila:
That merch for those may be direct-to-garment printed with a soft hand for the small runs, for the ability to do intricate artwork. The ability to do something digital maybe with a lot of colors. They want to do something with just a rock rabbit playing a crazy color guitar.
Mike Putnam:
Sometimes just in-the-garage simplistic discharge. Where it’s a single pass on a screen and then it’s a cure process within, and that’s controllable by an individual.
Marc Vila:
You’re saying, so we may be looking at screen printing or direct-to-garment printing on the one, and on the other side we will be looking at say sublimation. Sublimating on light colored polyesters that are lightweight, moisture wicking, high UPF and the other side-
Mike Putnam:
Typically tropical colors.
Marc Vila:
Tropical colors. On the other side we’re looking at dark, direct to garment or screen printing or even heat-transfer vinyl, and that’s a good definition of that of why it’s so different. If someone comes in and says, “Hey, I’m starting a T-shirt business. What’s the best I should have?” There was a lot of things we unpacked with two very, very specific examples that not only was the technology different but the T-shirt was different too.
Mike Putnam:
It’s part of why I love this industry. There’s so many pockets of what can drive a business. As a salesperson you would build the concert-venue time, World Series and sports playoff time. You would just build that through the year and find those customers that tailored to that particular market.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. This is also something that I love about this industry too, is that there’s the idea of what’s the best. When I think about what’s the best I-
Mike Putnam:
Good, better best. You always hear-
Marc Vila:
That’s definitely a-
Mike Putnam:
…”Give me a good, better, best.”
Marc Vila:
That’s definitely a great marketing tool-
Mike Putnam:
Subjective.
Marc Vila:
…and very subjective. I find that it’s so specific everywhere. One example I thought of was like, I’ve been watching Chef’s Table. Have you seen this show, Chef’s Table?
Mike Putnam:
I have.
Marc Vila:
They are hardcore into the ingredients. The chefs, they know how to cook. They’ve got great recipes. They know how to plate up a design so it looks so cool, it’s like art on a plate. But they will travel across the world to find the right flavor of mint that they’re trying to hit.
Mike Putnam:
Like the truffle for instance.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, and the right type and the right style and the right notes and it’s so specific. The ingredient is much like the T-shirt, right? It’s that there is no best-
Mike Putnam:
It can change the outcome.
Marc Vila:
It changes the outcome. Right, exactly. A great example of that, actually going into cooking would be sugar, so sugar and cookies. If you have refined white sugar and then on the other side of the spectrum, maybe you say you would have dark brown sugar. The amount of I believe molasses in that is different. Now they’re both sugar. They both are made from cane. They’re both very sweet. You cannot say which one is better for a cookie.
Mike Putnam:
Sometimes you’re mixing both of them at the same time.
Marc Vila:
Sometimes you’re mixing both of them together. It changes the outcome because a dark brown is going to create probably a much chewier cookie. If you eliminate brown sugar and just use white, it’s probably going to be a much drier, more cake type of a cookie. The same as with this T-shirt market too. The more of a certain material you have in there, the type of dye that’s used is going to effective the outcome.
Mike Putnam:
It can even affect the outcome of how something’s pressed after the fact.
Marc Vila:
Right, and that’s what I wanted to ask about. You work a lot in direct-to-film printing and helping folks start and grow their businesses with direct-to-film printers. Now, what are some things that have to do with T-shirts? I’ll be very broad so you can go with it, but T-shirts, dyes, coloring. How does that affect how somebody might choose the right apparel for direct-to-film printing?
Mike Putnam:
Every print that you make is really a test. You want to test your fabrics regardless, and especially with some of the newer tech. With transfers, you may have something called a hot peel, but not all fabrics hot peel. You could have a forest green and the same shirt and a black in the same shirt and the forest green won’t hot peel and the black will hot peel.
Marc Vila:
why is that?
Mike Putnam:
Some of that’s within the acidity of the dye or within the manufacturing process typically the dye is preventing it from, it’s either biting or it’s not releasing one way or the other. Sometimes with acidity or pH within the process, I’ve had sweatshirts that you could literally hold the sweatshirt and put your hand right through the fabric, because within the process the pH was off and those were highly decorated. We had to credit back, it was a large Hooter’s order, 9,000 shirts of just the pH was off within the process. You don’t know it until it’s post-decoration.
Marc Vila:
Right. This is something that I think that is under-studied and under-appreciated on how these are so different. I will see, especially folks new to the industry, get so frustrated on, “Why won’t this transfer stick to this shirt? Why is it peeling up? I’ve wasted a hundred bucks in paper. My customer is upset.” As you mentioned, almost every transfer is a test and it’s the dye makes a difference. I mean, it’s not even just not all cotton’s cotton and not all polyster’s the same.
Mike Putnam:
Some processes are also more forgiving than the other.
Marc Vila:
Okay, good. What do you think might be something that’s very forgiving and something that’s going to be a lot less forgiving as far as processes go?
Mike Putnam:
DTG and needing cotton shirts, much more forgiving. That’s more about the platform and you can control that within your process. Even if you used an entry level, a basic shirt, you can still put the pretreat on and press it to give it a surface of printing to improve that print over time.
Marc Vila:
What’s a technology that you might find or a concept that is going to be much less forgiving, where you’ve imagined a customer would have to test a lot more?
Mike Putnam:
I would say it would come in between the DFX process it’s a time and temp.
Marc Vila:
White-toner printing.
Mike Putnam:
White-toner printing. If you adhere to the process, it is much easier within the process but again, it’s a time and temp. If you’re combating a platen on the pallet, if you’re not taking an infrared gun and shooting your platen, you could be off somewhere. The pressure could be off. There’s just having the right equipment in those cases is paramount to the process.
Marc Vila:
Right. Okay. You gave two examples and what I see about those two examples are something I’ve talked about in the past, which is I think I consider there’s chemically decorating things. There is decorating things through adhesion and decorating things mechanically. Those are the three ways I personally define decorating things. When you’re decorating things with DTG, for example, I’d probably describe this as more of a chemical decoration and maybe a little bit mechanical.
Mike Putnam:
Some bonding.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, a little bit mechanical. You’re putting down pretreat, which is soaking into the apparel. You’re putting down ink, which is reacting with the pretreat and congealing. Or I don’t know the right word but it’s biting together and it’s like the fabric and the ink bite into each other like spilling glue on a carpet. You’re not just going to get it out.
Mike Putnam:
It’s a no-hand feel that’s part of the garment, and that’s what you’re looking for with that process.
Marc Vila:
And so there’s a degree of forgiveness in that because you’re putting shoving things into the shirt, same, similar with sublimation. Now white toner similar to heat-transfer vinyl is an adhesion process.
Mike Putnam:
Polymer. Yeah.
Marc Vila:
It’s glue.
Mike Putnam:
It sits on top of.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, it sits on top of, it’s like glue. You’ve got in so many words, glue or adhesion and heat-transfer vinyl’s the same. That is solid at room temperature. You get it hot. It softens. It grabs onto the shirt, and then when it cools down it hardens again. Not completely hard but it becomes more solid again, and then it now gripped onto the shirt. The acidity in the dye. The way the weave of the shirt is how-
Mike Putnam:
The fabric content.
Marc Vila:
The fabric content.
Mike Putnam:
A 60/40. A tri-blend or how it holds heat within the process.
Marc Vila:
Right. All affect that differently and as something that you’re going to adhere to. I remember early on I was messing with heat-transfer vinyl because we were testing our Triton vinyl, so I was just putting it on everything. I was just, how does it work? How does it look?
Mike Putnam:
I love single color, white heat-transfer vinyl. I can’t tell you how many logo shirts I go through.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, it’s great. Right? Well, I got some basketball shorts and it wouldn’t stick at all, not at all. It was like as if the glue didn’t exist and I tried all different colors vinyl. Eventually I got to a gold vinyl that stuck to it.
I talked to the manufacturer and I’m talking to this, and then it ends up that there was a high degree of acrylic. Right? The acrylic material in there was not compatible with adhesives because it was designed to resist staining and bacteria, all these things. It had all of this stuff designed to resist anything sticking to it, which is why the glue wouldn’t stick to it, in so many words.
However, the manufacturer said that the gold, in order to achieve the gold reflectiveness, they used a completely different adhesive then I think gold, silver, and another one I think were very-
Mike Putnam:
The metallics.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, the metallics were a completely different adhesive. That adhesive was not susceptible to the blocking characteristics of that short. If you’re brand new to the industry, how frustrated are you? But that’s the point of the testing and understanding all this stuff.
Mike Putnam:
Poly inherently, poly has to be treated to be moisture-wicking. Poly is aquaphobic, it repels water. You have to treat it for it to be moisture-wicking.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. Then now that we’re talking about treating, we’re talking about chemicals, heat, physical treating. Sometimes they take these-
Mike Putnam:
For the wash cycle.
Marc Vila:
…they stretch and pull.
Mike Putnam:
The enzyme wash or there’s many washes within. You can have the garment-dye process or the type of water that they’re using within. There’s so many variables that are the outcome of a T-shirt that have bearing on what you’re printing or how you’re printing it or delivering it or shipping it.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, and if you know, there’s another thing about runs and batches too. Right? Because if you’ve remodeled your house or if you’ve painted you know that… My neighbor just mentioned this to me. He goes, “If that Sherman Williams paint you’re going to buy,” he goes, “I don’t recommend going to a different store. Go to the same store because every machine could be slightly calibrated different and your tint will be a little bit off.” He said, “If you think you’re going to run out, go to the same store and mix those a little bit together.”
Mike Putnam:
Thank you. I’m getting ready to paint my house and I have my old paint.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, that’s what he said because he said, “That can slightly differ, and if you just go from one to the other you’ll notice.” The same thing if you order tile or carpet
Mike Putnam:
That I’ve seen.
Marc Vila:
That it will change.
Mike Putnam:
Within sizes I see that. Sometimes you get your shirts and you have a full size run kids all the way up, but you may have four or five different colors to contend with.
Marc Vila:
Yes. You may have where the mediums react differently.
Mike Putnam:
Yes, even after being heated.
Marc Vila:
Yeah and why? Well, because all of these were made in a factory, and then in this place in the world where the cotton comes from, there was a typhoon. That prevented cotton production, paused in that area. So they had to get the cotton from a different area of the world, which is still a cotton plant, but we know the diversification, diversity of animals and plants on earth. That cotton is slightly different in characteristics. It didn’t accept the dye the same way so they had to increase I don’t know what. What do I know about dyes, but the pH or the acidity and the dye.
Mike Putnam:
It’s a science. It’s a direct science for sure.
Marc Vila:
Now they got the color to match but now on a chemical level, that shirt is slightly different and then you throw pretreat on it and it comes out different. We should definitely have another podcast just to talk deeper into this stuff, but the moral of the story is for picking the best shirt so far, and we’ll cover a couple more things. But one is, you have to know your preference, your customer’s preference. What your market wants and the technology you’re using and making sure it works together. Then the second moral is that you’ve got to test all this stuff. If you’ve not worked with something before, order extras, test it first.
Mike Putnam:
At least one extra.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. Show it to your customer.
Mike Putnam:
Sometimes that can simply be a suggestion piece of you tested something. They had a large logo. You put it to a pocket print and you threw it on a shirt to test it.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. Keep extra shirts that you have to test again later and then-
Mike Putnam:
Or if something happens to that shirt after the fact, so you have a shirt that you can wash it and see if it really does that. I printed them, but wash mine and see if it does the same thing.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. See if you can replicate issues and then further helping, when you do that, you can help educate your customer, why. They say, “I want this green or this red.” Then you have to explain, “Well okay, if we’re doing red, red has a particular property where the dye in the shirt can come through through technology. No matter what technology I use, there’s going to be a degree where it actually changes.
Mike Putnam:
Dye migration. The fabled dye migration.
Marc Vila:
Dye migration. That there’s plenty of technologies that have blocking parameters but even still, over time that dye wants to change things. It wants to move free.
Mike Putnam:
You heat up past 330 degrees and the dyes will reactivate.
Marc Vila:
The dyes will reactivate and for a certain color or something like that.
Mike Putnam:
It could go through a dryer, an industrial dryer that gets above a certain temp and it can come out pink.
Marc Vila:
Right, mess it up. You might want to educate your customer if you know, and you know because you’ve tested. You’ve said, “A customer wants red. Let me see what happens.” You order some, you get it done and maybe you don’t order the full amount yet. Or you’ve done plenty of testing ahead of time where you’ve got that shirt in the back room ready to test again. And you grab a square of that shirt and you put your customer’s logo on it. It looks great, fine.
Another scenario is it doesn’t look great. You realize, “Hey, I’m already seeing some issues with this, with the technology that I use.” You go to your customer and you just say, “Hey, I’ve got a couple ideas for you. The white in your logo, let’s change it to black or let’s not do the red shirt. Let’s do a black shirt or a white shirt.”
You explain to them why and they may say, “That didn’t happen before. That wasn’t this.” Then you just have to explain, “Every scenario is different. The technology I print with. The type of shirt you want. Those shirts you were showing me before were printed in the nineties. I can’t tell you what dye or shirt that was. That material doesn’t even exist in this world anymore, that’s why.”
“Also, okay, well before when your business was huge and you printed them in the nineties, you were printing a 1,000 at a time at a screen print shop and they were doing something specific to make that work. Now your business is much different. You have a ton of virtual employees, so you only want 30 shirts. I’m going to be printing those with white-toner print technology for a short run because you’re not going to want to pay the screen-print price for that anywhere because the setup’s too expensive-
Mike Putnam:
Set up charges, correct.
Marc Vila:
“…so because of that we have to make a change.” You’ve got to educate your customer. We have five more minutes I’d like to discuss, and I think this would just be a fun exercise to just put you on the spot.
I’m going to name some technologies. And then because what somebody is going to be curious about listening to this podcast, this very well is going to be their intro to the industry. This maybe they googled and they found us and they’re learning. Other folks are in the industry and maybe they do vinyl now or they do embroidery and they want to know, what am I going to do next? Then you have folks who maybe have been in the industry for a long time and they know everything. They know more than us, but they’re trying to-
Mike Putnam:
I’m always learning.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, always. Right, exactly. That’s why they’re listening because they’re always learning and they said, “Okay, well here’s other people who’ve been in the industry for a long Time.” This is an in-your-opinion thing, but I want to name some technologies and maybe you can name some industries that would be, or some properties on why somebody would want to choose that technology.
For example, I would say, “Sublimation.” You’d say, “Great for the fishing and outdoor apparel.” we’ll start off at probably the oldest and most popular in screen printing. What business might be good to choose to go that way versus something else?
Mike Putnam:
high volume. High output. Something where it’s the same print, a lot of reps.
Marc Vila:
Okay. Same print, a lot of reps and I would say low-color counts too. Right?
Mike Putnam:
Truly. It’s very basic prints. Typically, you have to get a specialty printer for a four-color process to make it photo-realistic. It’s harder to register screens. When you find people that do that, I mean hold on to those screen printers, they’re valuable. It’s a dying breed. It’s hard technology to teach and then maintain employees.
Marc Vila:
And master. Then backing up on that one would be direct to film. It’s very accepted in screen printing and becoming more and more because of the high production. What are some positive benefits of direct to film?
Mike Putnam:
That’s that on-demand business. Something where you don’t have to carry inventory or you’re doing a lot of name drops. Or you’re pressing on poly or don’t have an idea of what substrates or fabrics you’re going to be printing on. It’s just a little more versatile, a little more forgiving.
Marc Vila:
You can do high volume and you can do digital, so you can do-
Mike Putnam:
Only as fast as how fast you can press, and teaching someone how to heat press is different than teaching someone how to screen print.
Marc Vila:
Right. Significantly easier.
Mike Putnam:
Significantly.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, like a morning versus a month.
Mike Putnam:
True.
Marc Vila:
Now, okay, so direct to film is it’s great for full digital. It’s great for variable data, meaning name-drops or something like that.
Mike Putnam:
Names and numbers without… It goes after the vinyl industry without needing to weed. You can pretty much set your prints up, run the prints. You can nest it or not nest it just depending on… The larger format gets you into just a higher output.
Marc Vila:
Both of the technologies mentioned so far, doing a decent amount of production. You’re not going to do one-off on those.
Mike Putnam:
Typically.
Marc Vila:
Now we can talk about one-off. We’ve got white-toner printing technology.
Mike Putnam:
Very versatile. For me, white toner it’s like having the club in the bag. You’re not going to go into the beach with your driver. You need something that’s just a little more versatile. If I’m doing a lot of hard goods, I have to have a white toner for that on-demand aspect. For those one-off shirts, it’s a very quick process. Or if I’m not in the office and I need something that’s little to no maintenance, that white-toner printer, it’s a versatile tool.
Marc Vila:
White toner is a versatility, short, medium run and it doesn’t need to be operated or maintained, so you could do something where you’re not in the office all the time.
Mike Putnam:
The footprint overall is it’s very accommodating to an office with a heat press and the printer. Yeah.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. I mean a basic-size table, any basic size. Almost literally any basic-size table outside of a bistro table can handle that whole setup, which is not the same as the other technology we mentioned. Now DTG, let’s talk about that one for a minute. What are strengths on that?
Mike Putnam:
I love the one-off capabilities of DTGs. If you’re a fan of a no-hand feel. You want something as close to water base. No hand. No buildup on. That’s the strong suit of you get some beautiful photo-realistic prints. It is a one-off market. Look, it’s a hundred percent cotton, but typically those people are very eco-friendly, so cotton has a great appeal. Polyester for a long time had a stigmatism about it as far as it’s manufactured or synthetic.
Marc Vila:
I mean I think it’s a petroleum based product?
Mike Putnam:
It is. That’s where the natural fibers have a hundred percent cotton.
Marc Vila:
Bamboo too, you can do with DTG?
Mike Putnam:
With DTG, yes. When DTG was born, it was born out of that eco, anti-poly world.
Marc Vila:
Yeah, because it’s you’re using a very little amount of ink. There’s the waste is very little compared to-
Mike Putnam:
It’s a creative technology. If you’re passionate about what you’re putting on and it’s a wonderful technology for creation.
Marc Vila:
Just super-premium print. Very soft. Tons of colors, and you can achieve the most beautiful print on a T-shirt, period.
Mike Putnam:
You want something feathered in without the hand, you want it to wash, that’s where you’re going to get.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. Great. Then the last one is sublimation, which actually we kind of covered, so I can go through that quick. But we talked about sublimation being zero hand or feel. Versatility is another one with that because you can do the mugs and coasters and mouse pads and shirts and all that. Right?
Mike Putnam:
I love the hard-good aspect and the entry level of sublimation is the appeal there. You can have a very nice printer, entry level, under three grand and easily have printable product and running the market.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. For a couple of thousand dollars on sublimation, you have something that can create the most premium product that you’ll buy anywhere.
Mike Putnam:
That’s the high end but my number was a high end. You can go low end. That’s just to maximize the print simply from… But you can go, it’s the easiest technology probably to get into outside of a vinyl. Vinyl will probably be my other, and that’s a viable industry in itself. Having the cutter and being able to put vinyl creatively, multicolor prints, it can get you up and running to the point that you grow your business.
Marc Vila:
Yeah. No, it’s great and vinyl was another one. I didn’t even put that on the list. I should have but yeah, I mean that’s another one great for versatility and for ease to entry. Well, we’ve covered a lot of stuff on this podcast today and there’s a lot more to talk about. Michael will definitely be back on again because there’s so much more to be had about this conversation.
But I think the next step is hopefully you realize that there’s a lot to learn. And if you’re getting frustrated in decorating, you realize that it’s more complex than just cotton or poly or white or black. If you’ve got questions about what’s the best technology? What’s the best shirt? All of that, go to ColDesi.com. You can live chat with one of our pros. You may very well get Mike on the phone if you’re going to talk about DTF a lot. Right? That’s a lot of the conversations you’re having today, so expert on that and all the other technologies and we’ll help to guide you through it.
If you’re not sure where to go next or you’re frustrated with technology that you’re using and you’re trying to figure out why. You can talk to us at ColDesi, and the folks here will help to explain the reason why you’re getting failure on this. The reason why the person you outsource to who has a DTG printer can’t provide you those fishing shirts is because the technology doesn’t do it. That education might help you realize that getting a sublimation system yourself is the next move.
Mike Putnam:
True.
Marc Vila:
Thank you again. We’re going to wrap up today and look forward to the next episode of Custom Apparel Startups with Mike Putnam coming soon. There’s so much we’ve got to talk about, man.
Mike Putnam:
Oh can of worms.
Marc Vila:
There’s so much so I can’t wait.
Mike Putnam:
Open the can of worms.
Marc Vila:
Thanks for joining us, everybody out there. Thanks for listening and have a good business.