Sublimation, screen printing, and embroidery each suit different jerseys, budgets, and design complexity. Here is how to pick the right one for your team kit order.
Every custom sportswear order eventually comes down to one decision: how should the logo, numbers, and graphics actually get onto the garment? The three dominant methods — sublimation, screen printing, and embroidery — each have real trade-offs in cost, durability, and what kind of design they can reproduce.
1. Sublimation Printing
Sublimation converts dye into a gas that bonds directly into the fibers of polyester fabric, meaning the print becomes part of the fabric rather than sitting on top of it.
- Best for: Full-color, photo-quality, all-over designs; gradient patterns; unlimited color counts at no extra cost.
- Durability: Excellent — it will never crack, peel, or fade from washing since there's no separate ink layer.
- Limitation: Only works on polyester or poly-blend fabric, and only on light/white base fabric (the dye can't lighten dark fabric).
- MOQ: Typically the lowest of the three, since there's no dye-lot minimum.
2. Screen Printing
Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil, one color per screen, directly onto the fabric surface.
- Best for: Simple 1–4 color logos and numbers on cotton or cotton-blend garments where sublimation isn't an option.
- Durability: Good, though prone to cracking over many years of washing if plastisol ink is used; water-based inks last longer but cost more.
- Limitation: Each additional color adds setup cost and time; not practical for photographic or gradient designs.
- MOQ: Moderate — screen setup costs make small runs less economical per unit.
3. Embroidery
Embroidery stitches thread directly into the fabric using a digitized design file, producing a raised, textured logo.
- Best for: Premium branding — team crests, sponsor logos, polo shirts, caps, and outerwear where a tactile, high-end look matters.
- Durability: The most durable of the three; embroidered logos routinely outlast the garment itself.
- Limitation: Not suitable for fine detail, gradients, or large all-over graphics — very intricate designs lose clarity when digitized for stitching.
- MOQ: Digitizing a design file is a one-time fixed cost, so unit economics improve quickly with volume.
4. Combining Methods
Most professional kits actually combine techniques — a sublimated jersey body with an embroidered crest and heat-transfer sponsor logos is a common, cost-effective combination that plays to each method's strengths.
US SPORT CLUB runs sublimation, screen printing, and embroidery in-house at our Sialkot facility, so we can recommend (and combine) the right method for your design, fabric, and budget rather than forcing your order into whatever single technique a smaller factory happens to offer.
