What Do I Need To Know to Order Custom Transfers?
It’s our goal at Transfer Express to make the experience of ordering custom transfers as easy as possible! We’ll assist you with the decision making process, explain the products to you, and guide you to the best decision possible. We understand that not everyone is an expert in screen printing and we’ve built our process around the idea that you shouldn’t have to be. It’s a beautiful thing really!
However, there are a handful of things we do need you to know, or at least have a good idea of, in order to make the process as smooth as possible.
#1 – What style and type of garment are you using?
This is one of the most important questions and often one of the most overlooked. Knowing what your garment is made of and what style of garment you’re using will help us give you the best transfer type for the job. For example, just saying “I’m using a jersey and shorts” doesn’t give us any of the important details. Telling us instead, “I’m using a polyester volleyball jersey with matching polyester shorts” is perfect! The garment style (ie: jersey, ribbed, mesh, etc…) is important as well as different style garments can provide different challenges and obstacles that we can help you get around.
#2 – What color is the garment and the ink colors?
If you’re using our screen printed transfers, this is vitally important. Certain transfer types will behave better on darker garments than others will. If you know the color we can make sure to give you the appropriate transfer. In addition, there may be times when we can avoid printing a color and use your garment color instead – we call this “show through.” For example, if your art has a shade of red in it and your garment is a shade of red, we can allow the red areas to show through to the garment and save you a whole ink color!
On the other side, if you’re using our Stretch Litho product then the “ink colors” are less important because these are full color. However, your color format is important. Here at Transfer Express we print using CMYK colors for Stretch Litho. So it’s important that your colors be set to CMYK when you send your artwork. If they’re set to spot, RGB, or other modes then your colors may change.
#3 – What size do you need printed? OR What is the printing area’s size?
This one can be difficult if you’re new to the game. But make sure you have a clear idea from your customer of what size they’re looking for their transfer. Even if it’s just a rough idea, like “adult size” or “full back size”. If you have a specific size, then that’s great! If you don’t, then we can guide you as long as you know how much space you’re working with on your garment. This can be especially important when dealing with hats and visors – different brands and styles have different amounts of space. If you make sure to measure or even check with the manufacturer before purchase, then we can make sure your transfer will be sized properly!
Taking a second to measure what you’re printing on ensures you’re getting transfers the right size.
#4 – How many total pieces do you need?
The standard paper that we print our screen printed transfers on is 11.25” x 14”. This means that if your artwork is rectangular in nature then we might be able to fit more than one on a piece of transfer paper. So as long as you tell us how many you need total, we can break it down into what we call, “gang sheets”. If you need 100 total transfers and we can fit 2 images per sheet of paper, then we’ll send you 50 sheets and save you a nice bit of cash.
You can actually take this idea a step further – if you have more than one transfer that are the same colors, then you can put different designs all on the same piece of transfer paper. Now you’re saving a LOT of cash because you have one order instead of two or more orders!
Putting as many images as you can per sheet saves you a bunch of cash!