james.brown
just my thoughts and that2012 promotional clothing
2012 is going to be a very busy year for promotional activity and we expect that to include clothing.
The big name printwear brands will be offering new ranges of promotional leisurewear with new styles.
We’ll wait and see what the new year has to offer us all.
Uneek Clothing
There are many well known clothing brands out there that are synonymous with promotional clothing such as FOTL, Gildan etc. Over the last few years Uneek Clothing has become one such name. The Uneek Clothing catalogue offers great value garments which in many cases rival the quality of the other bigger and more well established promo leisurewear brands. Since being launched Uneek have added new garments to meet the requirements of the garment imprint market. With most of the garments available in a whole range of sizes and the most popular ones offered in a wide assortment of colours, they are ideal for many people. It seems the Uneek range has become very popular with a web searches returning many of the promotional clothing suppliers and garment printers / embroiderers in the UK. One such supplier is Tabs Wear who have a dedicated Uneek Clothing catalogue. The range includes polo shirts, sweats (hoodies), fleece jackets, dress shirts and other essential items of promotional leisure / coprorate wear.
Hoodies
Having blogged about embroidery now would be as good a time as any to talk about some ’embroiderables’ (new word! ;-)). Polo shirts are the most popular but hoodies are catching up quick!
Check out the Just Hoods College Hoodie for a great example.
Embroidery or printing?
Embroidery is a great way to brand many garments as it looks expensive and it will often outlast the garment to which it is sewn. Embroidery is especially popular on polo shirts and fleeces where printing is not as possible.
On smaller quantities, embroidery is often more ecomical, screen printing set-up is usually priced per screen and that means per colour. So a design with 6 colours might cost £120, whereas embroidery set-up probably would cost around £40-£50.
It’s not always true that embroidery is the best way to go though. For example if you have 1,000 white crew neck t-shirts needing a large black only print to the back, which were to be given away, then screen printing would be the ideal way to go.
Embroidery machines come in different configurations and with different set-ups, number of colours which can be sewn at once varies with 9 colours being common but some offer 15. Number of heads on a mchine varies as well with machines available in 6 head, 12 head as well as single head and 18 head machines on the market.
Regardless of which machine iss used it is important that the artwork is digitised for embroidery properly. It takes good knoledge of embroidery machines and how they work combined with experience of running embroidey designs to learn how to digitise properly. A digitised design may look great on screen in the embroidery software, but when it is run on the machine you find that the design starts at a delicate part of an intricate design and creates a blog while making the first few stitches. There are many tweaks that may need to be made to a digitised (or punched) design to get it to run to customer satisfaction. A good embroidery starts with a good set-up.
Threads for embroidery come in many many different shades and so most logos can be reasonably accuratley reproduced in the correct colour ways. Embroidery thread is a specialist thread specifically for the task and is very well wearing. It is generally accepted that an embroidery will well outlast the polo shirt which it is on for example.
What is ‘Promotional Clothing’?
What exactly is ‘Promotional clothing’? Essentially it is clothing, usually leisurewear or work wear, which has been branded with a logo by way of print or embroidery. Garments may integrate corporate colours and styling. The aim of promotional clothing is to promote a business, brand, team or whatever. Promotional clothing really is used broadly to cover all manner of apparel for various purposes, not only promotional. T-shirts, polo shirts, sweatshirts (lately, especially hoodies) and caps are the first garments to come to mind when talking about promotional clothing
Embroidered clothing shop
Over at TabsWear the website has been tidied up now so it should be a little clearer and easier to browse. They have taken on board some of my ideas as well!
TABS Wear is a great source for embroidered polo shirts with shirts available to suit all budgets and requirements.
today
The sun was out and really bright this morning. It’s been cold inside this afternoon though.
So the Gurkhas have won the right to stay in the UK check it out in more detail at the BBC – Gurkhas win right to settle in UK. Good stuff.
nice theme
I like this theme, it’s Fjords04 by Peterandrej
We’ve been using the iNove theme by NeoEase over at TABS Wear for a little while now.
wow another blog
This must be the 6th or 7th blog service I have signed up for so far and it looks the most promising. Tried and tested WordPress software without any of the headaches of hosting it myself.
Will see how we get on.
james.brown 