Learn from the Experts at The Stahls Heat Printing Zone
Oct/110
Stahls’ is Heat Printing, and the Heat Printing Zone at SGIA Expo 2011 is the place to be. The Zone, located in booth 3625, will feature hands-on demonstrations, informational sessions with world-class experts, free samples, and chances to win prizes each day. You’ll also be able to pick the brain of industry pioneer Ted Stahl in Thursday and Friday question and answer sessions.
And don’t forget to visit the Transfer Express and Stahls’ ID booth (#1245) to see samples of our products and the latest and greatest heat transfer materials.
Creating Custom Halloween Transfers
Oct/110
In a previous blog we introduced our new Extreme Halloween stock prints and showed you how to customize with name drops. There were five different design choices, all in full color, but sometimes your customer wants something that is all their own, and Easy View™ can help you create a print to meet their needs.
By using the Halloween clip art and your own text, you can customize any of the Easy Prints® layouts.
Don’t limit yourself to just the Holiday section-any of the thousands of professionally created layouts can be customized for Halloween with the use of clip art and your choice of text. In the examples, we used layouts from the Alternative Fashion, Anywear, Basketball and Holiday sections, just using holiday clip art and text to fit the event. Be creative with your text using fun phrases your customer might like.
Is your customer looking for a print for a children’s Halloween party? Order a one color print, press on a white shirt and provide fabric markers to use as the party craft. One customer told me they just provided washable markers and the kids were thrilled that when washed the coloring was removed and they could start all over again!
New Halloween Custom Transfers
Sep/110
Ready for your parties and other Halloween events is our newest addition to Transfer Extreme™ – Halloween. Choose from five different colorful plastisol ink transfers or order the multi-pack. Each pack includes 10 transfers for just $20! These custom transfers can be applied to any color apparel that is cotton, polyester or cotton/poly blends in just 4 seconds. They are in stock and ready to ship the same day when ordered by 3:00 PM EST. Add a Halloween transfer to a tote bag for the ultimate Trick or Treat bag, a great favor idea for school Halloween parties!
You can also personalize these stock prints by adding an Express Name or creating a gang sheet in Glow-in-the-Dark for an extra scary touch! Add the name of a haunted house or hay ride and sell for extra profits, or add the host’s name for a great hostess gift for the neighborhood Halloween party.
Halloween Extreme Shirts & More
Screen Printed Transfer Inks: Goof Proof vs Polytrans Plastisol Ink Formulas
Sep/110
White backed in black - Polytrans screen printed transfer
Our Goof Proof® and Polytrans screen printed transfer products use the same ink and paper but offer different application techniques. Both products can be used on cotton, polyester and cotton/polyester blend apparel. Both our numbers and names can be applied using either technique.
Goof Proof® is made for speed! It uses a higher temperature (365º) at a faster application time – just 4 seconds. This is our number one top selling product!
Polytrans uses a lower temperature (340º) for a longer application (10 seconds).
Use Polytrans when:
• A fabric is sensitive to heat such as some polyester
• Doing a multi-color transfer and the background outline color is darker than the foreground color
Using the low temperature technique, the color stays brighter in this situation as shown in the photo.
Custom Transfers with Bling – Metallic, Glitter or Foil?
Aug/110
Is your customer looking to brighten the look of their printed apparel? If so, there are three different custom transfer options available.
The most durable and least expensive is our Goof Proof® in metallic silver ink. Plastisol, screen printed metallic ink transfers do have flecks of metal for some sparkle, but it is the most subtle “bling” of the three. It is the best choice for athletic or school items that need to be durable for constant wear.
The second option is glitter. This has a lot of shine and is probably preferred by females. It is still very durable since it is a screen printed ink. Cheer and dance teams seem to love the glitter as it meets both needs – it adds sparkle and is still durable.
The third option is foil. This is actually a 2 step process as you need both a transfer and the foil product to put over it. This is the look desirable for fashion items and is great because you can choose to foil just a portion of the print giving a 2 texture look at just a 1 color price. However, this is the least durable of the three but by using it with the metallic silver ink, in time if the foil does flake off, you still have a very durable metallic silver print on the shirt.
Metallic ink, glitter ink and heat transfer foil options for when you want to add bling to your screen printed apparel
Custom Transfer Tip – Using the Grid Lines
Aug/110
Getting the plastisol transfer placement centered and straight on your shirt is an important part of the application process. Our screen printed plastisol transfers are back printed with a grid pattern to help make this step easier. In addition, when you receive a full size transfer print, you can count on the image being centered on the paper for easy application. All you need to do is to put the release paper ink down on your apparel and position the center of the paper where you would like the center of the print to be on your shirt. Then be sure the horizontal and vertical grid lines are in position and press. Just like cross hairs, the grid line gives you an easy visualization of how and where the transfer should be positioned.
The grid lines on the back of our screen printed transfers help you align the transfer to the garment for easier application.
The grid lines are also beneficial when you are applying large legs or split fronts where you need to cut the paper for application, the grid lines give you an easy tool for lining your two halves back up.
We Can Print Custom Transfers in Any Color!
Aug/110
A customer orders a custom printed shirt but they want the ink color to match an outfit they have—so what do you do?
Answer: No Problem! Our screen printed transfers ink colors can be mixed to match any color you desire.
We stock 63 ink colors (plastisol). But if you don’t see what you need, we can always do a color match to the desired color for a small color match fee. You can either provide us a Pantone® color (Pantone® is a standardized system for colors, often called PMS or Pantone Matching System) or send us an item that you want matched.
Use Transfer Express' Easy Prints® Color Selector to choose ink colors for screen printed transfers.
If you want to see what colors we stock, we offer an approximated online color chart (there is some variance due to the variance in colors on computer monitors), a list of the Pantone corresponding numbers that can be used if you own a Pantone chart, or a color selector specific to Transfer Express can be ordered.
New 6”-2 Color Screen Printed Transfer Numbers
Jul/110
We now have a complete line-up of two color 6” screen printed numbers (plastisol), perfect for youth leagues! These two color numbers apply in one, easy 4 second application with a heat press. These transfer numbers are available in our best selling Champ style, a varsity, athletic full block number style. The numbers are sold as low as just 31¢ per digit making them very economical. They can be purchased in packages of five, team oriented Express Packs (60 digits), or best value league size Number Kits (315 Digits). Order today before 3:00 pm eastern and they ship the same day!
New color combination for 2 Color 6" Champ screen printed transfer numbers
List of color combinations:
- Black/White
- Black/Gold
- Black/Red
- Black/Orange
- Black/Grey
- Black/Vegas Gold
- White/Gold
- White/Black
- White/Red
- Burgundy/Vegas Gold
- Dk. Green/White
- Dk. Green/Gold
- Dk. Green/Orange
- Dk. Green/Grey
- Dk. Brown/Orange
- Gold/White
- Grey/White
- Kelly/White
- Maroon/White
- Maroon/Gold
- Navy/White
- Orange/White
- Purple/White
- Purple/Gold
- Purple/Orange
- Red/White
- Red/Black
- Red/Gold
- Red/Grey
- Red/Navy
- Royal/White
- Royal/Gold
- Royal/Orange
- Royal/Red
- Navy/Orange
- Navy/Red
- Navy/Grey
- Navy/Gold
- Navy/Vegas Gold
- Navy/Columbia Blue
- Vegas Gold/White
Vector vs Raster Art: Which is Best for Transfers?
Jun/110
Vector vs Raster Art:
There are basically two different types of art – vector and raster (bitmap/jpg). Both are useful depending on your end use.
Raster art is made up of tiny boxes known as pixels. An example of a raster image is a digital photograph. Typically, rasterized files end with file extensions such as .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .gif, and .png. One of the most common mistakes made with raster art has to do with scaling (sizing) a rasterized image larger. Since raster art is resolution dependent, you can scale smaller, but you shouldn’t scale larger. This is because there are only so many pixels in the image. Raster images are measured by their dpi (dots per [linear] inch). A crisp, high resolution image will be around 300 pixels per inch. When scaling larger, the same amount of pixels remain, but over a larger area. Therefore, if you scale a high resolution (300 dpi) photo twice the size, you now only have 150 pixels per inch, which is half the resolution previously. When scaling larger, the pixels per inch decreases, which in turn makes the resolution decrease. This creates the distorted and pixilated look.
When zoomed in on raster artwork, you can see the pixels that create the image.
Vector art, on the other hand, is not resolution dependent. You can scale it larger or smaller and it will still look the same. Vector art can be used on a golf ball or the same art can be used on a billboard and either one will look clear. This type of art uses mathematical formulas to create the artwork. There are no pixels involved. Instead, it uses points and curves to create shapes. This type of artwork is created in applications such as CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator, which can have file extensions such as .cdr, .ai, and .eps.
When zoomed in on vector artwork, lines and curves are smooth.
How does this all fit in to our transfers?
Rasterized artwork is fine for our CAD-PRINTZ™ digital transfers as long as it is high resolution at full size (300 dpi or higher). Also for our digital transfers, vector artwork is perfectly acceptable as well.
If you are interested in our screen printed transfers, the printing process differs some. In this case, you can send us raster artwork, however, it will only be used as a guide from which the artwork will be recreated. Vector art is preferred for screen printing.
How To Outfit An All Star Uniform
Jun/112
Baseball All Star teams are forming and these teams will need uniforms. Start with the front of the uniform and dress them like pros! An entire layout category is dedicated to these players in our Easy Prints® collection. Many of these teams will want two or more colors on the print and our online design tool, Easy View™ can show your customers what the print will look like in two colors on their shirt. All Star teams frequently also add a number to the front of the uniform under the logo, especially script with tails layouts. If doing teen uniforms, our 4” numbers are perfect. For smaller youth, use 2.5” or 3” numbers ordered through our Express Names program. If using 2.5” numbers you can fit 10 digits in one strip, and for 3” numbers you can fit 8.
The All Stars will want to be recognized so be sure so to be sure to add an Express Name above the number on the back. The 2.5” size is best for teen uniforms and the 2” size is perfect for younger teams. The number under the name can be ordered in two colors to match the uniform front, and with Easy Prints® numbers it is one application in just 4 seconds. For teen uniforms, an 8” number can be used and for smaller sizes use a 6” number.
If your team has a sponsor this can be added to the sleeve. Add this as well as a cap size print for your team caps to the front logo and create a gang sheet – all three logos are printed on one sheet for a great cost savings.
Add an American flag to the other sleeve and your All Star is ready to play!
All Stars layout QAS-2 with front number
