Color accuracy for products
The vibrancy and the print quality of your designs depending on the type of material that’s being printed as well as the product. With this in mind, different types of products with the same design will not look the same. For instance, the color on the pillow sham will look slightly muted when compared to a throw pillow or a canvas wrap with an identical design.
Printers used during printing
All of our apparel vendors are using Kornit printers. Read more about Kornit inks here.
For the DTG process, we use Kornit inks for our direct to garment printing that is specific to our manufacturers' presses. These are all water-based inks.
- Offset inks are for paper printing.
- Water-based inks can be used for DTG or screen print production.
Printing techniques
DTG printing
Most of the apparel items in our product catalog are printed using the Direct to Garment (DTG) printing method because it allows for maximum detail in design and color options. It is also a more cost-effective option for our partners. DTG is a method where a printer directly applies the ink onto the t-shirt with inkjet technology. It involves a special printer that prints the ink directly onto the garment with your desired design. DTG uses specialty inks that are absorbed by the fibers of the garment.
Dye-sublimation printing
Sublimation refers to a process where a substance moves from a solid-state to a gas state without ever being in a liquid state. Sublimation printing normally involves the use of a digital printer to produce mirrored images on paper that has been specially coated with a transfer material. For example, this method is used on our All-over print t-shirts and Accessory Pouches.
Woven technique
Unlike dye-sublimation or the direct-to-fabric print process, woven throw blankets utilize solid colored yarn combined with black and white yarn to achieve the 195 possible color combinations applied to your photos or graphic designs. Due to that, designing your artwork for a woven blanket can be somewhat difficult.
For photography, the software and colors can create a pleasing woven rendition of most photographs but graphic designs can be much more challenging to produce and that's why we created this guide for you.
Embroidery Printing
Embroidery printing is best used for creating logos on a thicker garment. Embroidery prints are typically long-lasting and durable. The cost of embroidery is normally more than traditional printing due to the process but can be much more cost-effective. This method of printing isn't suitable for all types of designs and complicated color palates or heavy gradients should be avoided.
Foil Printing
Unfortunately, we do not currently offer this print type. The sublimation process that our vendors use at the moment doesn’t allow for special colors that fall outside of the printers’ color gamut to be used. Special colors refer to colors with special effects like glitter and foil.
If you’d like to speak to our team about potentially using Sensaria for foil printed products, please reach out to your Partner Support Team. It’s helpful for us to know how many foil-printed orders a month you think you would fulfill. Understanding sales volume enables us to negotiate better pricing with our vendors and prioritize our integrations for all partners.