Iron On Vinyl Vs Screen Print

Vinyl is well suited for very small runs which we would consider anything from 1 to 12 shirts this is because the set up time is much quicker than that of screen printing.

Iron on vinyl vs screen print.

The high speed is because nothing needs to change from t shirt to t shirt provided the designs remain the same. Setting up screen printing takes much longer compared to vinyl printing but as soon as the set up in done the printing process is swift. In fact screen printing bulk orders will take the same amount of time as doing a small run of vinyl prints. This doesn t make it a faster overall method though as every shirt still requires individual set up which becomes too time consuming beyond the 12 shirt mark.

We use vinyl printing here which is essentially cutting designs out of different colors of vinyl our multitude of vinyl rolls are pictured and then heat pressing them on to a garment. If you ve been following me on instagram you may have noticed my new obsession hobby is screen printing with oracal 651 vinyl. Vinyl decal printing is great for small projects 1 12 decals because when setting up the time frame is much faster than that on screen printing. Since i shared my first screen printing tutorial many of you have asked why i prefer screen printing over heat transfer vinyl.

Screen printing requires a few more supplies to get started including a frame squeegee inks and adhesive vinyl. Even if you are doing a larger run of shirts if you only have a small logo then you may want to use custom iron ons as well since you can fit many iron ons. Deciding between vinyl t shirt printing or screen printing can be a hard decision to make. However screen printing is perfect for bulk orders 12 or more because you don t need to change the setup from shirt to shirt.

No it s not because i needed another excuse to buy craft supplies. For years i had been making heat transfer vinyl shirts with. As early as 2500 bc the ancient egyptians were already practicing the art of stenciling and the practice later spread to greece and china where silk was used to make the screens. Colorful minerals berries roots and other natural dyes were used as the inks.

Screen printing can be done with any vinyl cutter hello silhouette cameo users and you can heat set with an iron easy press2 heat press or heat gun. Unless using a wholesale printer like foamcoreprint screen printing on the other hand would take much longer to print the same number of decals. Screen printing is the right method if you re looking to work on large orders. Printing on one or two shirts can be very costly due to set up fees so if you want to supply over 100 colorful shirts for a charity event then you would want to consider screen printing.

Screen printing is the oldest method of printing garments with its roots going back as far as the ancient world.