Difference Between Heat Transfer Vinyl And Screen Printing

Vinyl printing depends on a combination of pressure and heat.

Difference between heat transfer vinyl and screen printing.

Since i shared my first screen printing tutorial many of you have asked why i prefer screen printing over heat transfer vinyl. With the vinyl heat transfer process a machine is used to cut out designs and letters in pieces of colored vinyl. One of the most common questions we get here at monograms by k k is what is the difference between screen printing and vinyl printing. You use a machine to cut out letters and designs from colored vinyl and heat press them onto the t shirt to transfer the color to it.

With that being said let s look at the pros and cons of each of these methods. For years i had been making heat transfer vinyl shirts with. No it s not because i needed another excuse to buy craft supplies. See heat press machines on amazon.

We use vinyl printing here which is essentially cutting designs out of different colors of vinyl our multitude of vinyl rolls are pictured and then heat pressing them on to a garment. A heat press is then used to transfer each vinyl color of the design onto the object being printed. Heat transfer printing on the other hand did not start until the 1940s. If you ve been following me on instagram you may have noticed my new obsession hobby is screen printing with oracal 651 vinyl.

Vinyl printing is all about heat transfer. It was invented by a company known as sato but the heat press machine was only invented in the 80s. Think iron on transfer but with a really big really. This doesn t make it a faster overall method though as every shirt still requires individual set up which becomes too time consuming beyond the 12 shirt mark.

In this method you need actual screens.