Vinyl Cutting for Baby & Toddler Clothing Blanks
Method:
Vinyl printing, or Cad Cut, involves a computer-controlled blade that digitally cuts the design out of vinyl. Generally, we would recommend screen printing but there are times when vinyl is more suitable for certain products.
Summary:
Vinyl is great for personalized names and numbers on sports team kit, on school and university leavers’ hoodies, tours for stag, hen, holidays. Vinyl is also better for customizing high-visibility cotton clothing and nylon fabrics.
When we would recommend using vinyl
- Individual names and numbers.
- One-off samples such as for client meetings or press events.
- Multi-colored logos that need to look bright and bold on dark backgrounds or on fabrics that have dyes that could otherwise bleed into the print.
- Nylon and technical fabrics such as hi-vis workwear, waterproofs, Gore-Tex® and similar, umbrellas and bags.
- Fabrics that stretch such as Lycra® or Spandex® sports and leisurewear.
How to Print on Vinyl
Vinyl printing is generally limited to simple text and designs. A single-color is the norm but we can overlay different colors of vinyl to produce some clever effects. The artwork is required in a vector format, which is produced in a software package such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw; the artwork format produces the design in lines as opposed to pixel as in a jpeg image.
Once the artwork has been cut, then take away the unwanted vinyl, this process is called weeding and can be very time consuming and delicate if the design has fine detail. This is why vinyl is only really good for lettering and simple one-color designs.
Once the weeding has been done the design is left on its backing paper. Transfer that onto the garment, this is done using an industrial heat press. This allows you to apply pressure and a temperature of 160 degrees. After this has been applied, the backing paper is removed.
Vinyl comes in many different formats, such as metallic, fluorescent, flock and reflective colors. It can be as durable as screen-printing – it can be washed up to 60 degrees c without any color loss, so can be a good option for work clothing that needs hot washes. Some Vinyl is designed to stretch so is a great option for sports clothing including leggings. Vinyl gives a smooth even finish with crisp edges but can look like it has been stuck on compared to screen-printing, which absorbs into the fabric.