People often ask “ what is the difference between screen printing and custom embroidery?“

‍‍Well generally speaking it is pretty obvious, but there are some major factors to consider when choosing the right process. Screen printing is the process of applying ink to a substrate by forcing it through a screen mesh. Embroidery is the process of thread, needle and sewing to create your image or pattern. Although screen printing offers a crisp and soft feel, it cannot be applied to any and all garments. It is difficult to print on any material that is not a flat surface. So hats, bags, and jackets are generally embroidered.‍

‍There are some cool features with embroidery such as a “puff” which gives a raised feel to the thread. You can also use embroidery for special placements and garment embellishments. Screen printing on the other hand allows the ability to produce a high level of detail. Any grungy textures, shading, gradients and textures are ideal for screen printing.‍

‍The cost difference varies and depends on the artwork, sizing, surface and many other factors. So when thinking about which process will be best, remember t-shirts are always optimal for screen printing whereas oddly shaped items, or materials that do not lay flat are typically best for embroidery.‍

‍There are other factors to consider when selecting embroidery as your decoration process. The “thread count” is a term used to determine the detail used for your image. The higher the thread count, the cleaner and more detailed the sew out will be. Not every image will be applicable to the wholesale embroidery process. There are some images that are simply too detailed to sew. Gradients and color blends are impossible to sew out, so vector and solid body colors are necessary to use this process.

Water-based heat transfers are a vibrant, soft,  and lightweight alternative to traditional screen printing. They are an ideal way to print complex, multi-color designs on apparel, hats, tote bags, and coolers. Another advantage of heat transfer printing is the easy setup. Since this process doesn’t involve the use of screens, there are no setup fees. This process allows us to provide you with high quality, eco-friendly prints on practically any material.

Additionally, water-based heat transfers are PVC free, so you can feel good about wearing an eco-friendly print. This form of printing is suitable for all fabric types without water proof coating; cotton, polyester, blends, and nylon.

We add a dye blocker to transfers that will be applied to materials that lose their dye with heat, like 100% polyester and nylon. With the soft shell blocker, you can feel confident in knowing the garment’s dye will not bleed through light color inks!

Heat-transferring, otherwise known as direct to film, is the only service we offer that allows for both a minimum of 20 pieces and an unlimited amount of colors. Our standard minimum for standard screen printing services is 72 pieces for an eight color print and 250 for a full twelve color print.

Since heat transfers are digitally printed to film and then applied to your garment with a heat press, there is no limit to the number of colors your design contains. So, pricing for heat transfers is based on the size of the graphic and not the colors within the design. This is huge when the artwork has too many colors for us to screen print.

Focusing on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The concept of sustainability is composed of three pillars: economic, environmental, and social—also known informally as profits, planet, and people.

Each and every day we try to demonstrate necessary practices to help take care of the environment. By undertaking unique environmental projects including using recycled content fabrics, switching to low-VOC inks, and replacing older presses with new, high-efficiency presses.

Since the beginning of Superior Ink Printing, it has been very important to us to be a sustainable company in every way possible.

One of our biggest accomplishments has been becoming a founding partner of the apparel brand Allmade in 2017. We co-founded Allmade to bridge the gap in sustainable blank garment options. Since partnering with Allmade, we’ve printed 82,345 Allmade tees to date, saving:
6,287,040 gallons of water
of CO2 59,288kg
18,157lbs of recycled plastic