We’ve produced lots of articles about different aspects of garment decoration. As the list grew, it became apparent to us that we needed a quick reference guide readers could use to sort through the articles and find the one they need most. And, we thought it would also be helpful to have them all in one place so you can read through all the related articles at your leisure to deepen your understanding of a particular field.
Since the index has become quite extensive, we’ve now broken it up into four categories; Heat Transfer Film (aka “T-shirt vinyl”), T-Shirt Printing, Laser Transfer, and General Interest. We’ll be combining product and process articles into these new categories. We hope this makes it easier for you to quickly find what you need. If not, please feel free to make suggestions or ask questions in the Comments field below. This is a dynamic resource. The index has been updated to include articles about the newest T-shirt printing solutions, including the Sawgrass Virtuoso and iColor and OkiData laser transfer printers. Bookmark this one and refer to it whenever you have a garment decoration question.
General and Miscellaneous Articles. These articles focus on general topics such as the different kinds of garment decoration methods, heat presses, and rhinestone decoration. These will also include specific tips that may apply to different decoration methods, like cost control and pricing.
- Basic Guide to T-Shirt Vinyl and Fabric Imprinting. This is one of our most basic and comprehensive introductions to decorating garments with heat-applied film and a plotter.
- How to Choose the Right Heat Press. If you’re going to use a vinyl cutter and thermal transfer film, you’re going to need a heat press. This article provides an overview of the various levels of performance and quality in heat presses from simple starter units to fully featured high volume models.
- Calibrating the Temperature Display on Your Heat Press. How to calibrate the digital temperature readout on a Geo Knight heat-press, and why you should.
- Digital Decoration 101 Webinar with Jimmy Lamb. A summary of and link to our archived webinar hosted by Sawgrass Manager of Consumer Education, Jimmy Lamb. The webinar presents a broad overview of various digital decoration technologies.
- What do I Charge? Summary of and link to our archived webinar by Jimmy Lamb about how to price and market garment decoration wisely and profitably.
Heat Transfer Film: Everything you ever wanted to know about T-shirt Vinyl but were afraid to ask.
- Basic Guide to T-Shirt Vinyl and Fabric Imprinting. This is one of our most basic and comprehensive introductions to decorating garments with heat-applied film and a plotter.
- Solve the Most Common Problems with T-Shirt Thermal Transfer Material: A general trouble-shooting guide to fixing common mistakes with heat-applied CAD T-shirt film.
- Logical Color WarmPEEL CP: Our most-affordable Logical Color HTV.
- Logical Color WarmPEEL Universal: Introduction to our fastest and most flexible flex film.
- Logical Color GlitterSOFT: The softest ‘blingy’ glitter Heat transfer vinyl on the market.
- How to Apply Logical Color HTV in Layers: We have made it easy for you to layer HTV. We even talk about mixing different types of HTV to layer as well.
- Under Pressure: The Secret Ingredient to Satisfactory Thermal Transfer Applications: This is one of our most practical articles because it addresses one of the most common mistakes made by new garment decorators.
- Cuttable and Printable Iron-on T-shirt Vinyl Options: Here’s a handy guide to all of our T-shirt transfer products that are suitable for use with a household iron.
- Basic Guide To Layering T-Shirt Vinyl: Most of our heat transfer products can be safely blended and layered. What kinds of materials can be layered and how does it work?
- Layering Siser Heat Transfer Films. Here’s the same information for the Siser Easy Weed product family.
- Basic Guide to Performance Apparel Decoration: Examination of the specific thermal transfer films and digital processes best suited for decorating performance apparel products like Under Armor and Lycra Spandex.
- Dealing with Anti-Microbial Coatings on Performance Apparel: This is a growing problem. Here’s how to tackle it.
T-Shirt Printing: These articles focus on various methods of printing transfers or appliqués for garment decoration. These include dye-sublimation, Sawgrass ChromaBlast cotton decoration, heat-applied inkjet printable films and papers for desktop inkjet and solvent, or eco-solvent inkjet printers.
- T-Shirt Printing Solutions Under $5,000: Start-up packages using different print & transfer methods are compared
- T-Shirt Printing Solutions Under $10,000: Packages for printed T-shirt transfers in the $5,000 – $10,000 range
- Logical Color Printable Vinyl – How-To-Videos: Essential info on how to use Logical Color solvent printable heat transfer film
- New Sawgrass SG500, SG1000 Sublimation Printers: an introduction to the latest advancements in desktop sublimation
- Basic Guide to Dye Sublimation: Start here for a good basic understanding of the processes, pros, and cons of dye sublimation.
- ChromaBlast 101: Answers to Cotton T-Shirt Decoration Questions: An overview of printing on cotton apparel with Sawgrass Technologies’ ChromaBlast ink and paper.
- DarkJET and DarkJET Solvent: Comparing the features and advantages of the solvent printable and inkjet printable varieties of EnduraTex DarkJET heat transfer print media.
- Transfer Tape for T-shirt Graphics: Explanation of the purpose of using pre-mask tape with printed heat applied apparel graphics and recommendations for which tapes to use with what print media.
Laser Transfer: One might expect laser transfers to be included in the T-Shirt printing category. It is a method of T-shirt printing, but there are enough specific aspects to laser transfer process that we felt it would be easier to sort through all the information if we put them all together. Here you’ll find all of our articles about iColor and OKI laser transfer printers, self-weeding transfer papers, and all the related processes, including tips for getting the best possible results from your printer and paper combination.
- Introduction to the iColor 550: The most affordable white toner laser transfer solution.
- OKI webinar: Comprehensive look at OKI textile transfer solutions.
- OKI Pro 8432WT: Oki’s updated five-color transfer solution.
- OKI C831-TS: Tabloid size t-shirt transfers made easy
- Using LXI RIP 12 software with OKI WT laser transfer printers: How to create the white under-base layer in LXI.
- Laser Transfer Troubleshooting Tips: How to solve the most common problems with GO UNO, OKI, iColor Series printers, and self-weeding papers for light and dark garments.
- Logical Color LXF Dark self-weeding two-step transfer paper: Faster, simpler, more affordable. The best dark garment solution.
- LXF Light: The easy one-step solution for light garments.
- Designing for OKI WT printers in Photoshop. It’s all about the paths
As indicated in the introduction, this index is not static. It will be updated -and perhaps reorganized again – as we add more garment decoration content. In the process of compiling or updating this index, we may have overlooked something. If you see an article that you think should be added to this archive, please feel free to use the comments field below to bring it to our attention.