Printing, embroidery and finishing on clothing made in Bangladesh

Start from the artwork, not from the method. A bold design with one to four flat colours, ordered in thousands, belongs in screen printing: it is the cheapest per piece and the most durable. A logo on a polo, cap or jacket where the garment should read as premium belongs in embroidery, provided there is no text below about 5mm. A photographic or many-coloured design, or a short run, suits digital printing, since there are no screen charges. An all-over pattern on a polyester sportswear piece belongs in sublimation, which is printed onto the panels before the garment is sewn. A worn-in look or a deep, soft colour comes from garment dyeing and washing rather than from decoration at all. Send us the artwork, the fabric and the quantity and we will tell you which method suits and what each would cost.

Yes, and it is common: an embroidered chest logo with a screen-printed back graphic, a printed body with a woven label, or a garment-dyed piece with a discharge print applied afterwards. The thing to plan is sequence, because each process has its own constraints. Garment dyeing and washing happen after sewing, so decoration applied before them must survive the process, and often it is better to dye first and decorate after. Sublimation happens before the garment is assembled, so anything added later is a separate operation. Heat-applied transfers cannot be pressed over a raised embroidery. We set the sequence at the sampling stage and prove it on a pre-production sample, so the interaction between processes is tested on a real garment rather than assumed. The order of operations is fixed on the tech pack.

Both last as long as the garment when they are done correctly, so choose on look, cost and fabric. A fully cured screen print survives normal domestic washing for the life of the garment; when one fails it cracks or fades, and the usual causes are under-cured ink, too heavy a deposit or a print laid across a seam. Embroidery is stitched into the fabric, so it cannot peel or crack, but it can pucker on a light or stretchy knit, and text below about 5mm closes up. A large solid area of stitches also stiffens the panel, which is why a big back graphic is usually printed and a chest logo embroidered. If the garments will be industrially laundered, say so at quotation, because that changes the specification and needs its own test. Either way, ask for the strike-off or sew-out to be made on the bulk fabric and washed to ISO 6330 before bulk.

No: the garment sets the minimum, not the decoration. Our own orders start at 500 pieces per style and colour for most products, t-shirts and hoodies included; denim, jackets, woven shirts, workwear and uniforms start at 2,000, and underwear and socks at 5,000, whichever method decorates them. Screens and embroidery digitising are one-off costs spread over the quantity, so they change the price per piece rather than the minimum: a six-colour screen print or a dense embroidery costs more per garment on a short run than on a long one, while digital printing has minimal set-up and suits colourful artwork on smaller quantities. Each extra print or embroidery position is quoted as its own line, and each garment colour counts towards its own minimum. If your quantity is below our minimums, the low MOQ page explains the small-run route through our sister factory, Collective Studio Ltd. Send the artwork, the garment and the quantity and we will quote the decoration line by line.

Garment decoration is any process that adds a design, a logo or a surface effect to a garment beyond cutting and sewing it. It covers printing (screen printing, DTG and DTF digital printing, and sublimation), embroidery and its relatives such as appliqué and patches, and finishing that changes the whole piece, such as garment dyeing and washing. The methods differ in where they sit in production: sublimation is printed on panels before sewing, most prints and embroidery go onto cut panels or finished garments, and dyeing and washing come last. They also differ in what drives the cost: colours for screen printing, stitches for embroidery, area for digital printing and coverage for sublimation. Whichever you choose, approve it on a sample made on your bulk fabric and washed to ISO 6330:2021, the international standard for domestic washing and drying in textile testing. Send the artwork, the garment and the quantity, and we reply within one working day.

Four families cover most printed garments: screen printing, digital printing, sublimation and heat transfers. Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh, one screen per colour, in plastisol, water-based or discharge ink, with puff and high-density as raised effects. Digital printing has two routes. DTG sprays ink straight into cotton. DTF, as the printer maker Mimaki describes it on its European website (read on 1 October 2026), prints pigment inks and a white layer onto film, adds hot-melt powder and is heat-pressed onto cotton, polyester or blends. Sublimation turns dye into gas that enters polyester fibre, so it suits all-over designs on white or pale polyester. Heat transfers are designs made separately and pressed on, such as cut vinyl names and numbers. Any of them can be a placement print on one area, and some can cover the whole garment. Send your artwork, fabric and quantity and we will say which type suits it and why.

Add up the one-off set-up charges, divide them by your quantity, then add the running cost per piece for each position. The set-up is what differs by method. Screen printing needs one screen for each colour in each position, plus an underbase screen under bright colours on dark garments, so a four-colour front with an underbase and a one-colour white back on a black tee is six screens. Embroidery has a one-off digitising charge per design and a running cost that follows stitch count. Digital printing has almost no set-up, and its running cost follows printed area. Sublimation follows coverage. Because our orders start at 500 pieces per style and colour, set-up is always spread over at least 500 garments, and its share shrinks as the quantity rises. Send the artwork with sizes, positions, garment colours and quantity, and ask for each decoration to be quoted as its own line.

Not always: decoration is often done by a separate specialist unit, and you should know which one. Some sewing factories have their own print and embroidery sections; others send cut panels or finished garments to a printer, an embroiderer or a wash plant nearby. The practice is common enough that H&M Group’s supply chain page, read on 1 October 2026, defines its own category for it: processing factories, subcontracted by its suppliers to carry out processes such as embroidery or printing. It matters because a second site means a second set of audits, chemical rules and quality checks, and goods moving between sites can be mixed up or delayed. We make knitwear and caps in our own factory and source everything else from audited partner factories, so the same question applies to every order we manage, our own included. Ask us for the name and address of every site that will handle your goods, in writing, before production starts.