Em•bel•lish Verb | To make beautiful with ornamentation; to decorate.
It’s 11:45am and you’ve just presented your first beach towel. You client’s eyes are hooked onto the gorgeous imprint that you’re holding up and everyone in the conference room is eagerly awaiting your response on how it was made. At this point you find yourself scrambling to remember the process. Too late! Meeting’s over and everyone is bolting to lunch. If only you had read this article before presenting…
In this edition of Terry Town Today, we’re going to continue our Beach Towels Debunked series with an introduction to printing methods and turn you into a beach towel expert.
As technology is rapidly changing our world for the better, advancements in printing and print methods have changed the game in regards to how we can print and what materials we can print on.
Screen Printing When screen printing on beach towels, you’re going to want to steer your clients towards two methods: printing colored logos on a white towel or printing what is called a tone-on-tone imprint on a colored towel. These two processes utilize water-based inks which are absorbed by the cotton fabric and provide for a smooth imprint all throughout.
Seen as the classic method of decorating beach towels, screen printing allows for a clean imprint throughout. It's the perfect solution for clients who want their logo as the focal point of the beach towel.
Dye Sublimation
Sublimation printing is a process that has revolutionized our ability to print on beach towels. The process may seem complicated at first, but it is actually a very clean and painless procedure. Sublimatable towels are either 100% microfiber polyester or they can have a polyester/cotton blend.
Your logo is first digitally printed on a piece of transfer paper, which gets placed flat on the towel. It then gets run through a heat press, where the heat and pressure combo allows for the ink to bind with the polyester fabric. The end result is a beautiful work of art that can transform your client's logos into masterpieces.
You now have the ability to print as many spot colors or even high resolution photos for a truly one-of-a-kind beach towel.
Now that we’ve got the science out of the way, let’s focus on what’s important: time and cost. For projects with a simple text logo with one or two colors, you’re going to want to stick with screen printing. Sometimes the cleanest look offers the most practical solution. As far as pricing is concerned, there will be a screen charge for every color the logo has. This is where screen printing is limited in the fact that multiple colors require multiple screen charges. With dye sublimation, you’re going to have one flat, low set up cost. That flat rate grants you access to the blank canvas that is the beach towel; an edge to edge print with whatever your heart desires.
Both screen printing and sublimation beach towels can be knocked out in 5-7 business days in Terry Town's state-of-the-art printing facility. So, who wins? There is no clear winner as each printing method works wonderfully depending on the context of your project and your client’s needs. Terry Town recommends trying sublimation out for those who haven’t yet. It’s a process that’s truly a game-changer and will definitely cause quite a stir at your next product presentation.
Beach towels don’t seem to be that daunting of a project anymore, do they? They’re in the realm of unique promotional products in that they have immediate brand impact and longevity, two key things distributors are always in search of.
Your next step should be to get yourself a few samples of each style and have options ready for your clients to touch and feel the difference.
