Branding your Workwear: Printing or Embroidery?
You have a choice when it comes to enhancing your Workwear with your Company name or logo. Which is best? Embroidery or Printing?
Here are some guidelines to help you decide:
What product is to be branded?
Leisurewear such as Polo Shirts, Teeshirts, Sweatshirts and similar products can be printed or embroidered. It’s your choice.
Boilersuits, warehouse coats and jackets can be printed or embroidered
Fleece Jackets definitely embroidery due to the pile in the material
Waterproof Jackets. Better to be printed to protect the waterproof features.
Boilersuits: Printing or embroidery
What material is to be branded?
Poly/Cottons, Cottons, Polyester can be printed or embroidered while fleece materials should be embroidered
Waterproof Jackets (PVC, Polyurethane, Nylon mixes) are better printed as with embroidery you are effectively putting maybe 10,000 holes in the material. Having said that, they are very tightly packed so unless it’s extremely wet weather, it should hold out.
What is the environment where your workers will be working?
Generally speaking, if your workers are washing their work clothes regularly (weekly), such as polo shirts, embroidery will last longer. If they are wearing High Vis vests or Jackets, printing will last just as well.
How long will Printing last without degrading?
This depends on the working environment. The regular prints we use (Digitran) are tested to a minimum of 50 washes at 60deg C. However we can also supply industrial wash prints which will meet higher washing demands.
Which method is cheaper?
To explain how this works
Embroidery: we need to start with your design and get it set up and digitised so it can go on to the embroidery machine. This is a one off payment typically around £25-40. Embroidery costs per garment will depend on the number of 1000 stitches, so for example a front left breast embroidery of 2000 stiches around 10cm wide may cost from £2.50 depending on its complexity, whereas as a large back embroidery of 15,000 stitches may cost around £6-10 per embroidery.
Heat Transfer Prints are priced in quantity bands of 25 and size, so typically a front breast print of 50 sq cm will cost around £3.50 each for 25 prints whereas 100 will cost around £2.00 including application.
