Dye Sublimation for Commercial Clothing Makers

Clothing Manufacturers Can Use Dye Sublimation to Decorate Their Products

Hi Eileen,

Hope you are fine and in the best of health.

Linda Lundstrom is a Canadian designer and has a designing and production capability here in Toronto Canada.

While searching ways to print directly on fabric, your website came out.

Going through your instructions, I decided to ask more of your support.

Is there any way to use your craft concept industrially? Printing on fancy clothes some very unique patterns ...

Hope you will guide me in this.

Take care,

Hassan

Hi Hassan,

Your nice introductory note makes me feel like we have actually met. I checked out the Linda Lundstrom website and want to share it with my other readers before I answer your question.

Linda is a designer with a wonderful philosophy about woman's clothes. Her company logo is "For Authentic Women Everywhere...real lives...real bodies...real beauty." You can find Linda Lundstrom retail stores across Canada and the U.S.

She has done what many of you have done or are striving to do: turn your artistic talent into a profitable business. Since my logo is "The Artful Crafter - Helping Crafters to Be", I wanted to give Linda a little plug.

She has the nicest welcome letter on her home page. In part it says, "As a designer I believe that a woman's size and shape has nothing to do with her value as a human being. My inspiration comes from real women of all sizes " It's not my designs that will make you look beautiful, it's you that will make my designs look beautiful."

Now to answer your question...

I don't know which of my articles regarding printing on fabric you found, but dye sublimation is very definitely a process that can be used industrially. Dye sublimation is a very exciting technology for crafters and designers who produce in short to medium runs.

You've seen dye sublimation printed products but may not have realized it. Dye sublimation printing is used for t-shirts and other apparel, coffee mugs and ceramic tiles - just to mention a few uses.

Dye sublimation printing produces photo-realistic images on both hard and soft surfaces including ceramic, metal, polyester fabric, Mylar, glass, wood and plastic.

The process involves printing onto paper and then transferring the dye to a polymer or polymer-coated surface with heat. It sounds like, but is nothing like, those old rubbery iron-on t-shirt transfers that crack and peel off. These are true dyes.

The term "sublimation" refers to the fact that the dyes vaporize under heat. Sublimation is the transition of a substance from the solid phase directly to the vapor phase, or vice versa, without passing through an intermediate liquid phase.

Dye sub "inks" are not really inks. The liquid is a carrier for the dye molecules and the color in the bottle sometimes bears little resemblance to the color on your final product since the dyes need to be heat-activated.

The heat of your printer vaporizes the dye. The carrier liquid carries it to the paper where it cools and returns to a solid state.

By placing the printed paper face down against your product and applying the proper heat and pressure, the dye again vaporizes and is carried to its final destination.

Click here to read more about the dye sublimation process.

If dye sublimation sounds like what you are looking for, contact Coast Graphics. They are experts at guiding companies through the steps of incorporating dye sublimation into their production process.