How do I get started? Decide which Brand suits your requirements……AP Promo or AP Sports First up, with Aussie Pacific, you’ve got two Brand Options in creating your own unique custom clothing. This is a small fabric and small style range option catering for a specific budget. The two main fabrics most commonly chosen are MicroMesh and the unique Aussie Pacific staple, the Mini-Waffle. Both fabrics are ‘performance fabrics’ meaning that moisture is removed from your skin and ‘wicked’ through the fabric to be evaporated by the movement of air around your body. AP Promo fabrics are dipped anti-microbial (or anti-bacterial) treated after being knitted. AP Promo (or White Label) is printed using 4 head China Inks and Papers and made in the Aussie Pacific factory to present you with a quality garment, just like you’re used to with Aussie Pacific off shelf garments.

How do I get started? Decide which of the Brands suits your requirements……AP Sports With more fabrics and styles available to you, the AP Sport range caters for both On and Off Field apparel. For Off Field apparel, the 3 main fabrics most commonly chosen are MicroMesh, the more elegant knit Birdseye and the unique and durable Aussie Pacific staple, the Mini-Waffle. On Field apparel uses 2 weights of rugged Interlock, Elastane for stretch and movement and for less physical sports, the Mini-Waffle & MicroMesh. All fabrics are performance fabrics with moisture removed from your skin and ‘wicked’ through the fabric to be evaporated by the movement of air around your body. AP Sport fabrics use anti-microbial (or anti-bacterial) treated yarn (DriWear™) before being knitted into the various form such as the Mini-Waffle, MicroMesh, Interlock & Elastane. AP Sport (or Black Label) is printed using a 6 head process with Imported Italian and Japanese Inks and Papers and made in the Aussie Pacific factory to present you with a high quality garment (just like you’re used to as stock items from Aussie Pacific).

With either brand, you have a few Options….. On-Line – DESIGN LAB What about the Design, I know what I want but can’t even draw a straight line? With either brand, you have a few Options….. On-Line – DESIGN LAB Aussie Pacific have an On-Line Design service that your ‘Industry Professional’ (Screen Printer, Embroiderer, Promotional or Corporate Distributor) can point you to. Tip : Don’t forget to include the name of your ‘industry professional’ so that they can contact you about your Design. Or, give them some indicators of what you’d like to see, colours, designs and let them do this for you? Go to this link>> and have a look at the Categories, Styles and Colours. Tip : This is a click/click colour change using a range of stock fabric colours. With either AP Promo or AP Sports, most styles have a minimum of 20 Pieces and this can be made up of Mens, Ladies and Kids.

What about the Design, I know what I want but it’s not Design Lab DYO ? Custom Design For only a slightly higher Set Up cost, you can have a totally unique garment, not just your Club, Team, Business or Organisation garment in different colours but something that stands alone. Talk with your ‘industry professional’, they have outline Templates that they can sketch up to get you underway. Or, give them the best brief and let Aussie Pacific come up with a series of Designs for you, using your Club, Team, Business or Organisation’s colours, logos and sponsor details. This is called a Visual, you’ll be able to take various components from each Design to create your own unique garment. Aussie Pacific endeavour to get these back to you in quick time. With either Design Lab or a Custom Design, once you’ve signed off the Design and paid your Deposit (say 1 week) then you can expect to wait only 4 weeks to get your gear.

Custom Design Visual

Then what? I have my Design, Sizes and Quantities, what now? As a sign of commitment, your industry professional will seek a Deposit from you... There is a procedure to be followed and because these are customised pieces of apparel they are of no use to anyone else if you change your mind. Your industry professional will lodge a Deposit with Aussie Pacific to get the Job into production. The 4 Weeks for production starts when your industry professional completes all of the paperwork necessary, Deposits, Contracts and Final Job Sheets. Now I have my Design, what are the Set Up costs for? Behind the scenes, your Artwork becomes transformed The design needs to be Set Up to make sure that the colours are ‘spot on 100%’. This also applies to the size of the Logos. For example while the pattern of the Designs stays consistent from say a Mens Size XS through the range to a 5XL, the front chest logos stay proportional while the back images scale up proportionally. Dye Sublimation is only as good as the Artwork, we need to use Vector Art for the final product There is a lot of work to do that you won’t see until you receive your garment. From time to time, Logos have to be redrawn and coloured appropriately, that’s why we love PDF, EPS and Hi-Res JPGs. Unfortunately many logos from the Internet need to be re-drawn unless there are of high enough resolution.

DYE SUB-WHAT IS IT? In very basic terms, Dye Sub or Dye-Sublimation is a digital printing technology using full colour artwork that only works successfully with polyester (it is also referred to as digital sublimation). The process is most commonly used for decorating apparel, signs and banners, as well as novelty items such as cell phone covers, plaques, coffee mugs, and other items with sublimation-friendly (polyester coated) surfaces. The process uses the science of sublimation, in which heat and pressure are applied to a solid, turning it into a gas through a reaction without passing through the liquid phase. In sublimation printing, unique sublimation dyes are transferred to sheets of “transfer” paper via liquid gel ink through a piezoelectric print head (whew!-now that's technical - Piezoelectricity is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials). The ink is deposited on these high-release inkjet papers, which are used for the next step of the sublimation printing process. After the digital design is printed onto sublimation transfer sheets, it is placed on a heat press along with the substrate to be sublimated. So the image can be transferred from the paper to the substrate, it requires a heat press process that is a combination of time, temperature and pressure. The heat press applies this special combination, which can change depending on the substrate, to “transfer” the sublimation dyes at the molecular level into the substrate (in this case the pores in the polyester).

But I like cotton, can this be done on 100% Cotton? Sorry, nope. Why, because Cotton is a natural fibre that does not have 'pores' that can open to accept the ink (that has now turned to gas). But, a Cotton Back fabric can be used, let's say it's 80% Poly/20% Cotton. However, you'll only get an 80% vibrancy on dark colours, lighter colours don't pose the same issue as with darks. Note: There is no White Dub Ink, all seam to seam Dye Sub is done on White Fabrics. The end result of the sublimation process is permanent, high resolution, full colour print because the dyes are infused into the substrate at the molecular level, rather than applied at a topical level (such as with screen printing and direct to garment printing), the prints will not crack, fade or peel from the substrate under normal conditions. On the following pages, you will see what the actual Dye Sub process entails…. Starting with the Nesting or Set Up……….