Ask five suppliers whether your workwear should be printed or embroidered and you'll get five confident answers — usually whichever method that supplier happens to run in-house. The honest answer is that it depends on your logo, your garment and how the kit will be used. Here's how we actually decide, order by order.
What each method actually is
DTF (direct-to-film) printing prints your artwork onto a carrier film with a white underbase, which is then heat-pressed onto the garment. Because of that underbase, full-colour artwork reproduces accurately on any garment colour — including black and navy, where older transfer methods went muddy.
Embroidery stitches the design directly into the fabric. Your logo is first “digitised” — converted into a stitch file that tells the machine every movement — and the quality of that digitising matters as much as the machine itself.
Choose by logo, not by preference
The design itself usually makes the decision for you:
- Full colour, gradients or photographic detail? Print. Thread can't blend colours; a sunset in stitch becomes stripes.
- Small left-chest mark, simple shapes, solid colours? Embroidery — it reads as premium and lasts the life of the garment.
- Fine hairlines or small text? Print. Below roughly 4mm letter height, stitches fill in and text becomes illegible. This is the single most common thing we correct at proof stage.
- Large back prints? Print, always. A back-sized embroidery is heavy, expensive and makes the fabric pucker.
Durability — the honest version
Embroidery wins on hard wear: it survives industrial laundering and won't crack, which is why trade uniforms are traditionally stitched. But modern DTF is far better than the transfers people remember peeling off old football shirts — properly pressed, it takes 100+ domestic washes without cracking or fading. For most staff kit washed at home, both methods outlast the garment.
Cost
Embroidery is priced by stitch count, so a dense logo costs more every single time it's stitched. Print is priced by size and colour count, and full colour costs the same as one colour. As a rule: small simple logos are similar either way; large or colourful designs are meaningfully cheaper printed.
The combination most uniforms actually use
Plenty of the kit we produce uses both: an embroidered left-chest logo on polos and outer layers for the premium feel, with printed backs on tees and hi-vis where size and colour matter. There's no rule that one order means one method.
See it before you decide
This is one decision that's far easier with your own logo in front of you. Send it to us and we'll show you both treatments on the garments you're considering — a free mock-up, no cost and no obligation. If your logo has hairline serifs or tiny text, we'll tell you before you spend anything, not after.