Custom Merch Glossary: Printing & Apparel

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Blank apparel: Undecorated clothing made to be worn as-is or customized with printing, embroidery, labels, or other decoration.
MOQ (minimum order quantity): The smallest quantity a supplier will accept for a product, color, decoration method, or production run. Different parts of one order can have different minimums.
GSM: Grams per square meter, a measure of fabric weight. GSM helps compare weight but does not by itself determine softness, durability, warmth, or quality.
Screen printing: A method that pushes ink through a mesh stencil onto a garment. Each ink color normally needs its own screen, so the method becomes more economical as quantity grows.
DTG (direct to garment): A digital process that prints water-based ink directly onto fabric. It is useful for detailed, photographic, or many-color artwork and smaller runs.
Embroidery: Decoration made by stitching thread into a garment or accessory. Price and feasibility depend on stitch count, size, placement, thread colors, and the item being embroidered.
Digitizing: Converting artwork into machine instructions for embroidery, including stitch direction, density, underlay, and sequence. It is not the same as simply saving a logo in a different file format.
Decoration location: One printed or embroidered area, such as left chest, full back, sleeve, or hat front. Each additional location can add setup and production cost.
Colorway: One product color or coordinated color combination. Splitting a run across several garment colors can affect availability, minimums, and setup.
Pantone matching: Using the Pantone Matching System as a shared color reference. A Pantone target improves communication, but fabric, ink, thread, coating, and lighting can make the final appearance vary.
PFD (prepared for dye): A garment or fabric prepared for later dyeing, usually without optical brighteners or finishes that interfere with dye uptake.
Ring-spun cotton: Cotton yarn made by continuously twisting and thinning fibers. It is commonly used for a smoother, softer hand than basic open-end yarn.
Combed cotton: Cotton processed to remove shorter fibers and impurities before spinning, which generally creates a smoother and more consistent yarn.
Tubular construction: A body made without side seams. It can be efficient and comfortable, while side-seamed garments may offer more control over shape and fit.
Underbase: A base layer, often white, printed beneath colors on dark garments so the design appears opaque and accurate.
Halftone: A pattern of small dots that simulates gradients or shades with a limited number of screen-printing inks.
Print-ready artwork: Artwork supplied at the correct size, resolution, color setup, and file format for the chosen decoration method, with fonts and linked elements handled correctly.
Production proof: The approved representation of artwork, placement, size, garment, and color used to authorize production. A digital proof is not always a physical sample.
Sample: A physical garment or decorated piece reviewed before or alongside a larger order. Sample cost and timing depend on whether it is blank, decorated, or custom manufactured.
Pack-out: The steps after decoration, such as folding, bagging, labeling, sorting by recipient, or preparing cartons for shipment.
QC (quality control): Inspection against the approved order details, including garment, color, size, decoration placement, print or stitch quality, count, and packaging.
Lead time: The elapsed time needed for approvals, sourcing, production, quality control, and sometimes shipping. It should be measured from a clearly stated milestone, not assumed from the inquiry date.
DTF (direct to film): A transfer method: artwork is printed onto a film, coated with adhesive powder, then heat pressed onto the garment. It reproduces full-color detail without screens and works on cotton, blends, and polyester, including dark garments.
Sublimation: A process that turns dye into gas so it bonds into polyester fibers rather than sitting on top of them. It gives edge-to-edge, all-over color with no feel to the print and no cracking or peeling, but it only works on polyester and cannot print white.
Discharge printing: Discharge printing removes the dye from the garment and replaces it with ink, creating a soft, vintage hand feel. It works best on dark 100% cotton garments.
Puff print: A screen print using an ink additive that expands under heat, leaving the design raised off the fabric. Best for bold, simple shapes; fine detail and small text flatten out.
Puff embroidery: Puff embroidery uses foam under the stitching to create a raised, 3D effect. It works best with bold, simple shapes and is available on most garment types.
Plastisol: The standard screen printing ink. It cures under heat and sits on top of the fabric as an opaque layer, which is what makes screen prints vivid and long-wearing on dark garments.
Water-based ink: Screen printing ink that soaks into the fibers instead of sitting on them, giving a softer hand feel and a flatter finish than plastisol. It needs more care on dark garments.
Garment dyeing: Dyeing a garment after it is sewn rather than dyeing the fabric first. It produces a softer hand, a lived-in look, and slight piece-to-piece color variation that is characteristic of the process rather than a defect.
Pigment dyeing: A garment-dye process using pigments that sit on the surface of the fiber, giving a faded, washed appearance that continues to soften with wear. Piece-to-piece variation is expected.
Reactive dye: A dye that forms a chemical bond with cotton fibers, producing deep, wash-fast color with far less fading than surface pigments. Common on premium heavyweight cotton fleece.
Print area: The maximum width and height a decoration method can cover in one pass, set by the press platen, printer bed, or embroidery hoop. Artwork larger than the print area has to be scaled down, split, or quoted as an oversize placement.
Stitch count: The number of stitches in an embroidery design. It is the main driver of embroidery cost and run time, so simplifying a dense design lowers price more reliably than shrinking it.
Setup fee: A one-time per-order charge for preparing a decoration method: burning one screen per ink color for screen printing, or digitizing artwork into a stitch file for embroidery. It does not repeat on a reorder of the same design.
Size curve: How a total order quantity is split across sizes. Ordering a realistic curve rather than an even split across every size is what prevents leftover stock at the ends of the run.
Drop shoulder: A cut where the shoulder seam sits below the natural shoulder, giving a relaxed, boxier silhouette. It changes where a chest logo reads on the body compared with a set-in sleeve.
Oversized fit: A cut intentionally wider and often shorter than a standard fit, worn loose by design. It is a pattern choice, not a size up, so an oversized medium and a standard large measure differently.
Woven label: A fabric label woven with your brand mark, sewn into the neck, side seam, or hem. It replaces or supplements the blank manufacturer's branding and is what makes merch read as its own label.
Cut and sew: Manufacturing a garment from pattern and fabric rather than decorating an existing blank. It allows full control of fit, paneling, and trims, and carries higher minimums and longer lead times than decorating stock blanks.
Vectorization: Redrawing a low-resolution or photographic logo as scalable vector paths so it can be separated into screens or stitched cleanly. It is what a print shop means by asking for print-ready artwork.

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