How many colours?

If you've ever printed t-shirts, you've probably been asked this question: How many colours are in your logo? We need to know this information first in order to decide which process we're going to choose to print your shirts. If your logo is only one or two colours, we're almost always going to screen print the shirts. Screen printing is the process of putting ink onto the shirt one colour at a time. If your logo has five or more colours we might recommend using digital or direct to garment printing. This process is like putting your shirt into a colour printer and the design is printed all at once. The next question we'd need to ask you is: How many shirts? While both processes are good, we also want to give you the best price and value for the quantity you'll need.

• Direct to garment printing is better for a low quantity of shirts (around 50), and a high number of colours (more than 5)

• Screen printing is better suited for a low number of colours (2 to 3) when printing small runs of shirts (under 50)

Screen printing in my opinion is the best way to print a shirt; the colours are brighter and print quality is superior. To make it simple I've attached a simple chart showing the threshold of when to choose screen printing vs direct to garment printing.

By: Jeff McCormack