Difference Between Heat Transfer Vinyl And Screen Printing

Screen printing produces better quality printings than heat transfer.

Difference between heat transfer vinyl and screen printing.

Vinyl printing is all about heat transfer. For years i had been making heat transfer vinyl shirts with. A heat press is then used to transfer each vinyl color of the design onto the object being printed. You use a machine to cut out letters and designs from colored vinyl and heat press them onto the t shirt to transfer the color to it.

It was invented by a company known as sato but the heat press machine was only invented in the 80s. In this method you need actual screens. With that being said let s look at the pros and cons of each of these methods. No it s not because i needed another excuse to buy craft supplies.

Common kinds of heat transfer printing include vinyl heat transfer and digital print heat transfer. Think iron on transfer but with a really big really. With the vinyl heat transfer process a machine is used to cut out designs and letters in pieces of colored vinyl. See heat press machines on amazon.

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. One of the most common questions we get here at monograms by k k is what is the difference between screen printing and vinyl printing. 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.