Print & Surface Design
Screen Print, DTG, or Sublimation: What Actually Decides It
The right printing method isn't a style preference. It's math — run size, garment color, and fabric content deciding before design ever does.
"Ask a print shop which method is best and you'll usually get an answer that happens to match the machine they already own."
The Question Isn't Which Method Is Best
Screen printing, direct-to-garment (DTG), and sublimation solve different problems, and treating them as interchangeable is where a lot of first orders go wrong. Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil, one color per screen, which makes it efficient at volume and hard to beat on cost per unit once a run is large enough to absorb the setup cost (Kornit, 7 Types of Shirt Printing and Their Benefits).
Where DTG and Sublimation Actually Win
DTG prints directly onto a garment the way an inkjet works on paper, which makes it the practical choice for small runs and photographic detail that would take an unreasonable number of screens — the tradeoff is a per-unit cost that never really drops with volume the way screen printing's does (Custom Ink, Screen Printing vs. Digital Printing vs. Sublimation: A Buyer's Guide). Sublimation turns ink into a gas that bonds directly with polyester fibers, leaving zero hand-feel — but it only works on polyester or poly-coated goods, which rules it out for cotton before the design conversation even starts.
The Real Decision Tree
Run size decides most of it: screen print for volume, DTG for small batch and complexity, sublimation for all-over graphics on performance polyester. Garment color and fiber content decide the rest, and that decision should happen before a single mockup gets built, not after.
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