63 / 116
OCTOBER 2015 •
PPB
• 61
Types of Artwork
Regardless of the decorating technique,
it’s important to understand some of the
specifics about artwork, fabric and color
that can be helpful in creating your
client’s design and selecting a garment
to get the best possible results.
Promotional products artwork prima-
rily uses two types: vector and raster.
Vector artwork is created using a series
of points (or nodes) and outlines or
paths, to create shapes which can then
be filled or outlined with color. Each
shape can be selected and modified
individually. This type of artwork can be
enlarged without affecting the sharpness
of the image. It will always retain its
smooth, clean edge. This is the type of
art you would probably be familiar with
for promotional products such as pens or
Vector artwork
Raster artwork
THE ABCs OF GARMENT DECORATING
Cut-vinyl Decorating
This decorating process is different from
the rest in that there is no printing
involved. With cut-vinyl decorating, a
vector image is run through a machine
that cuts the outline of the design onto
any one of a variety of vinyl materials,
such as standard colors, neon, glow-in-
the-dark and glitter. As with print-cut,
the excess material is weeded and
removed, leaving only the image, which
is pressed onto the shirt. With cut-vinyl
designs, decorators must consider the
line thickness and spacing of images. For
example, standard clip art (top) usually is
too detailed, and the lines and spaces
are too thin to cut and weed efficiently,
so the artwork may need to be tweaked
to make it work.
Direct-to-Garment
Also called DTG printing, this is exactly
what it says—printing directly on the
garment. The process is similar to the
way a piece of paper is printed through
an inkjet printer. In DTG printing, the
garment is laid on a pallet and the pallet
is then fed into the printer, where the
inks are sprayed directly onto the gar-
ment to reproduce an image. It does
require an additional pretreating step
for dark garments.
Heat Transfer
Heat transfer designs can be made by
various processes. They can be screen
printed and even printed on special
paper that is run through an inkjet or
laser printer. Transfers are then adhered
to the garment using a heat press.
Decorating Production