All-over graphics with no hand-feel at all.
Sublimation bonds dye into polyester fibre, so the graphic becomes part of the fabric instead of sitting on it. In house in Tirupur, and the right answer for jerseys, kits and sportswear.
Sublimation is chemistry rather than coating. Disperse dye is printed onto transfer paper, the paper is pressed against polyester under heat, and the dye turns straight from solid to gas. The heat opens the polyester fibre, the gas enters, the fibre closes and the colour is locked inside.
Nothing is added to the surface. Run your hand across a sublimated jersey and you cannot find the graphic, because there is no ink film and no transfer edge. The fabric feels and breathes exactly as it did before printing.
That is why sublimation owns sportswear. It also means graphics can run edge to edge and across seams, because panels are printed flat and then cut and sewn into the garment. Full bleed designs, sponsor blocks and numbering all print in one pass with no colour limit.
See sportswear capabilities →// At a glance
Sublimation only works on polyester, and only on light grounds
Three honest constraints. If any of them breaks your design, another method is the right one and we will say so.
Polyester only
Disperse dye bonds to polyester and to nothing else. On cotton it has nothing to enter, so it sits on the surface and washes out. There is no version of sublimation that works on a cotton tee. For cotton, use DTG or screen printing.
Blends lose colour
On a poly-cotton blend only the polyester takes the dye, so the result reads washed out in proportion to the cotton content. That can be used deliberately for a faded look, but full saturation needs a polyester-rich fabric.
It cannot print white
Sublimation dye is translucent and there is no white ink. White in your artwork is simply the fabric showing through, which means the base has to be white or very light. A dark polyester garment cannot be sublimated over. For strong colour on a dark base, use DTF.
There is one more thing worth knowing. Because the dye lives inside the fibre, later heat can make it move. We sequence decoration so that anything requiring a hot press is handled before or away from sublimated panels, and we flag it when a design mixes methods on one garment.
// Fabrics it suits
When to choose it
Choose sublimation when the graphic is the garment. Team kit with panel colourblocking, a cycling jersey with sponsor blocks, an esports shirt with a pattern running into the sleeve, a training top where a printed panel has to breathe and stretch like the fabric around it. None of these can be done properly with a surface print.
Choose it when durability decides. Nothing outlasts dye inside a fibre, so a sublimated kit wears out before the print does.
Choose it when hand-feel is non-negotiable. A player wearing a heavy surface print across the chest feels it every time they sweat. A sublimated number does not exist to the touch.
- Team and club kit across football, rugby and cricket.
- Race-fit cycling apparel where panels and seams are part of the design.
- Esports jerseys with dense sponsor artwork and per-player naming.
- Performance shorts and training tops in men's and women's athleisure.
What to expect, and what to send
Durability
The best of any decoration method, by a clear margin. There is no film to crack, no edge to peel and no thread to snag, so the graphic cannot wear off the way a surface print does. Colour holds through repeated hot washing better than pigment ink, and the fabric's stretch and breathability are unchanged because nothing was added to it. The realistic caution is heat rather than washing: keep an iron off the panel.
Artwork requirements
Because panels are printed flat and then cut and sewn, sublimation artwork is built to the pattern, not to a rectangle. We need your graphic laid out per panel with full bleed past every cut line and enough allowance for the seams, so a motif crossing a side seam lines up once the garment is assembled.
Supply high resolution artwork at full panel scale, built in CMYK, with no white ink assumptions. Repeats need to tile cleanly. Fine dark text reproduces well; pale text on a pale ground does not, because there is no white to hold it.
Minimums
From 50 pieces per style per colour, sizes splitting freely. Because the work is cut-and-sew, the pattern and panel layout are prepared once per style, then quantity flows through it. Sample lead time runs 10 to 22 days and bulk 25 to 55 days, at the longer end when a kit carries per-player naming.
How cost behaves
Two things move the number: printed area and panel count. Ink and paper are consumed across the whole printed surface, so an all-over design costs more than a chest-and-back placement. A garment built from many separate printed panels takes more cutting and sewing than a simple two-panel top.
Colour count costs nothing, and per-piece variation costs nothing, so names and numbers add no setup charge. There is no large one-off setup to spread, so the quantity curve is gentler than screen printing's.
Decoration is quoted inside your unit cost once the artwork, the panel layout and the quantity are fixed. Nothing on this page is a price.
Sublimation: common questions
No. Disperse dye has nothing to bond to in cotton, so it will not survive washing. Anyone offering sublimation on cotton is either using a coated fabric or using a different method and calling it sublimation. For cotton, use DTG, DTF or screen printing.
Not over an existing dark base. The dye is translucent, so it can only darken what is already there. Dark sublimated garments are made by printing the dark colour as part of the all-over design onto white polyester, then cutting and sewing. Adding a graphic to a finished dark garment is a DTF job.
No. There is no film, so nothing can crack or peel, and the dye is inside the fibre rather than on it, so washing does not abrade it away. It is the most durable decoration we offer.
Yes, at no setup penalty. Each panel is printed individually, so per-player naming, numbering and sizing variations cost the same as a repeated design. It does add preparation time, so allow for it at the longer end of the bulk lead time.
Yes. Embroidery sits well over sublimated fabric for a club badge or a sponsor crest, and it adds no heat to the panel. We sequence it after the panels are printed and before or after assembly depending on the placement.
From 50 pieces per style per colour, sizes split freely. Request a sample before committing to a full kit, or book a call to walk through the panel layout.
Kit where the graphic is the garment.
Send your panel artwork or just the concept, and we will build the layout with you.