Branding methods explained

Two things about pricing first, because they change how the rest of this guide reads.

Branding is included in the product price. Print, embroidery or, on ceramics, a high-temperature ceramic transfer of your logo is part of the per-piece price, with no setup fees. There is therefore no method that is "cheaper" than another on our quotes — the trade-off is technical.

What quantity does change is the shape of the price. Small runs carry the print set-up cost, so the per-piece price drops sharply from 50 pieces upwards. That effect is strongest on methods with a physical setup — a screen per colour, a cliché per colour, a printed transfer sheet — and weakest on digital methods.

The method itself is chosen by our production team as the best fit for the item, its material and your artwork. On apparel that is normally embroidery or DTF/screen print; on drinkware, tech and other hard goods it is pad print or laser engraving; on ceramic mugs and cups it is a fired ceramic transfer. You can ask for a specific method — tell us in the request and we confirm on the mockup whether the surface allows it.

Embroidery stitches the logo into the fabric with thread. It gives the most premium result on garments and is the method to choose for hoodies, polo shirts, jackets and caps, and works best for logos up to about 10 cm. Its strengths and limits come from one fact — the image is stitches, not ink:

• It does not sit on top of the fabric, so it does not crack or peel, and it is the safer choice for garments that are washed often or washed hot.
• It adds texture and weight, which reads as quality on a sweatshirt and as bulk on a lightweight t-shirt.
• Hairline strokes and small text cannot be resolved by a needle; our studio prepares a simplified embroidery version.
• Gradients are not reproducible. Colours are matched to thread shades.

Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh, one screen per colour. It gives dense, durable colour and is the classic method for large front prints on t-shirts and sweatshirts. Because each colour is a separate screen and pass, it is at its best with a small number of flat colours and a decent run length.

DTF (direct-to-film) transfers a digitally printed image onto the garment under heat. It reproduces full colour, photographs and gradients without a screen per colour, which makes it the practical answer for multi-colour logos and shorter runs. On our quotes both appear as print.

A rule that resolves most textile cases: one or two flat colours on a heavy garment, embroidery; multi-colour, photographic or large, print; washed hot and often, embroidery or a woven label.

Pad printing picks ink out of an etched plate with a silicone pad and lays it onto the product. The pad deforms, so it reaches curved and irregular surfaces that a flat method cannot — which is why it is the standard on bottles, pens and small tech items. It holds crisp small detail and reproduces exact brand colours, one colour per pass. Its limits: the printable area is small, and the ink sits on the product, so heavy abrasion wears it.

Laser engraving removes or discolours the surface layer instead of adding one. On stainless steel, aluminium and coated metals it gives a permanent, elegant mark that cannot be washed or rubbed off, and it is the usual choice on tumblers and metal-bodied tech. The result is monochrome, so a multi-colour logo has to be reduced to one colour first.

Ceramic transfer is the only method we use on ceramic and porcelain mugs and cups. The design is printed as a decal and then fired onto the glaze at high temperature, so the image becomes part of the surface rather than a coating on it. It is dishwasher-safe and the image stays sharp for years, and as a printed decal it carries full colour and fine detail. The trade-off is that these mugs are decorated this way and not by pad print or laser: the method is chosen by the material.

Debossing and embossing press a logo into a surface with a heated die, leaving a recessed or raised mark and no ink at all. It suits PU-covered notebooks and leather-look goods, where it reads as restrained and permanent. It carries shape only, and needs a compressible material and a simple, bold outline — fine internal detail closes up under the die. Availability depends on the item and its supplier, so ask for it in the request and we confirm it on the mockup.

Printed matter follows different rules, because the whole surface is the design rather than a logo placed on a product. Our catalogues, postcards, business cards, printed notebooks and stickers are produced in two technologies:

• Digital printing has no plate setup, which makes very short runs viable — some of our print products start at 5 or 10 pieces. It suits small quantities and fast turnarounds.
• Offset printing uses plates and becomes progressively cheaper per piece as the run grows, into the thousands. It is the choice above a few hundred pieces and where colour consistency matters.

The finishing layer is where print products gain their perceived value. Matt or gloss lamination protects the cover; soft-touch film adds a velvet surface. UV varnish is applied selectively over parts of the design — a logo, a headline, a pattern — so those areas gain gloss against a matt background. 3D UV varnish lays the same coating thickly enough to be felt as relief, turning a logo into a tactile element without an embossing die.

Page count and quantity are separate axes on print products: the same catalogue at 32 and at 64 pages is priced differently at every quantity step, so fix the page count before comparing quotes.

In practice you have a logo, a product and one binding constraint. These are the usual ones.

• Small logo with fine detail. On hard goods, pad print or laser engraving. On textile, print rather than embroidery.
• Multi-colour or gradient logo. DTF or screen print on textile, a fired ceramic transfer on ceramics, offset or digital on paper. Avoid laser engraving and debossing, which carry shape but not colour.
• Item washed hot and often. Embroidery or a woven label on garments; a fired ceramic transfer on mugs, which is dishwasher-safe by construction.
• Curved or irregular surface. Pad printing, the method built for it. Flat transfer methods need a flat area.
• Large print area. Screen print or DTF on textile. Pad printing is a small-area method and cannot cover a bag panel.
• Very short run. Digital methods — DTF on textile, digital printing on paper — since they carry no per-colour setup.

If two methods both work, choose the one that will still look right when the item is a year old — almost always the one where the image is in the material rather than on it.

Vector formats (AI, EPS, PDF, SVG) are ideal, because they scale to any print area without losing edges. High-resolution PNG works too, and AI-generated designs are accepted; our studio prepares artwork for production free of charge, including the simplified one-colour and embroidery versions a method may require. Send your brand colours as reference values too — that removes the most common round of back-and-forth.

After that the sequence is fixed. We prepare a mockup showing the logo in position, at size, on the actual product. You approve it. Standard production and delivery is from 5 working days after mockup approval — the clock starts at approval, so the artwork stage is the part of the schedule you control. A blank or decorated sample ships within 2-3 working days and its cost is credited against your order.

The lead times, quantities and EU delivery guide sets out the whole schedule; how to choose corporate gifts covers the decision before this one.