Difference Between Heat Transfer Vinyl And Screen Printing

Since i shared my first screen printing tutorial many of you have asked why i prefer screen printing over heat transfer vinyl.

Difference between heat transfer vinyl and screen printing.

We use vinyl printing here which is essentially cutting designs out of different colors of vinyl our multitude of vinyl rolls are pictured and then heat pressing them on to a garment. With that being said let s look at the pros and cons of each of these methods. For years i had been making heat transfer vinyl shirts with. If you ve been following me on instagram you may have noticed my new obsession hobby is screen printing with oracal 651 vinyl.

It was invented by a company known as sato but the heat press machine was only invented in the 80s. With the vinyl heat transfer process a machine is used to cut out designs and letters in pieces of colored vinyl. No it s not because i needed another excuse to buy craft supplies. Think iron on transfer but with a really big really.

You use a machine to cut out letters and designs from colored vinyl and heat press them onto the t shirt to transfer the color to it. Common kinds of heat transfer printing include vinyl heat transfer and digital print heat transfer. Heat transfer printing on the other hand did not start until the 1940s. This doesn t make it a faster overall method though as every shirt still requires individual set up which becomes too time consuming beyond the 12 shirt mark.

In this method you need actual screens. One of the most common questions we get here at monograms by k k is what is the difference between screen printing and vinyl printing. See heat press machines on amazon. Screen printing produces better quality printings than heat transfer.

Vinyl printing is all about heat transfer.