JDA Promo Introduces Direct-to-Garment Printing

JDA Promo recently introduced direct-to-garment printing or DTG to our production capabilities. This is one of the newest ways to decorate your t-shirts with vibrant photo print quality art at the best price for full color.

What is DTG?

DTG printing is a very hot trend in apparel decoration. Unlike screen printing, which involves printing each ink color in a separate layer, DTG prints full-color photo-quality images directly onto t-shirts using water-based ink. Think of it like a high-tech inkjet printer, but instead of printing on paper, you’re printing directly on a garment.

Why use DTG?

It’s useful when you have complex, full-color artwork or photo images. (Such as more than 4 colors in your artwork.)
Ideal for less than 144 pieces. This can be a great solution especially if you need to order fewer than 24 shirts and still want multiple colors in your design.
Combine with screenprinting. For example, you can screenprint a 1-color logo on the front and print a full-color DTG design on the back.

DTG Design Example

We created an animated version of our office front door for our new staff t-shirts. DTG gave us the ability to get creative without worrying about the number of colors or losing detail in the design.

DM130DTG with DTG Printing at 24 pcs

$26.50 + $50 setup*

How does it compare in terms of cost and quality?

We’ve found that both direct-to-garment and screen printing wash and wear well over time. You may notice a difference in the way the printing feels on the shirt itself. For example, a large screen printed design with multiple layers of ink will feel a little stiffer compared to a large full-color DTG image, which will feel softer because there are fewer layers of ink applied to the shirt.

Unlike screen printing, direct-to-garment requires special treatment of the fabric to allow the ink to bond to the shirt. The easiest option is to choose from a selection of pre-treated shirts, but we can also apply a pre-treatment to other styles as long as the fabric makeup is mostly cotton. DTG pre-treatment can add around $2 on average compared to a standard t-shirt.

Pricing for DTG depends on quantity and the size of the logo. We can print small, left chest designs up to 5”x 5” or full front/full back designs up to 13”. You may also want to keep in mind that larger DTG designs run about $4 more per shirt than the left chest DTG design. In many cases, there is also a one-time set-up fee of $50 per design for DTG.

Step-by-step

Send us your vector art.
We upload art to the printer and set up the design for printing. (We’ll make adjustments to get the most accurate colors but please note that PMS color matching is not available.)
If you are not using a pre-treated shirt, our team will apply a pre-treatment bonding agent and run it through our industrial converter dryer to cure the solution.
Before it goes to the printer, we’ll heat-press the garment to smooth out any wrinkles or fibers for the best possible print.
The shirt is put on the printer and your design is printed.
The shirt is removed from the DTG machine and goes through the dryer to complete the process!