If the design is full color, detailed, or different for each guest, go DTF. If it's a one- or two-color logo that goes on every shirt, a press is faster and cheaper per piece. Busy San Diego booths often run the two next to each other.
Where DTF earns its spot
- Art it handles: photographs, color fades, thin lines, and a first name or team added per person.
- How it runs: we print the film transfers at the Fullerton shop, then press each one onto the garment in San Diego while the guest watches. Swapping designs halfway through costs nothing.
- What you give up: a heat press is quieter to watch than a squeegee pull, and the transfer feels lighter on the fabric than plastisol.
Where a press earns its spot
- Art it handles: logos in one to three flat colors and chunky shapes, run hundreds of times.
- How it runs: each color gets its own screen, ink is pulled by hand and cured with a flash unit right at the booth. The pull draws a crowd.
- What you give up: screens are made before the truck leaves Fullerton, so the art is locked about a week before your date.
Typical San Diego splits
A sponsor's logo going on several hundred shirts through a Convention Center show day belongs on a press. A UTC biotech mixer where every attendee wants their own name on a quarter-zip, or a Gaslamp party with a full-color illustration, belongs on DTF. Carlsbad and Del Mar resort crowds tend to ask for polos and totes too, and DTF covers those. Hats are a job for the hat bar or embroidery. Still torn? Send us the file and your headcount and we'll call it.