Every professional sports kit you have ever seen on television was almost certainly sublimated. Not screen printed, not vinyl, not embroidered — sublimated. There is a reason the whole industry settled on one process for this one garment, and understanding it tells you most of what you need to know about ordering a custom jersey.
This guide explains what sublimation actually does, why it suits jerseys so well, the three hard limits that catch people out, and how to design artwork that survives the process.
What sublimation actually is
Sublimation is not printing in the normal sense. Nothing is laid on top of the fabric. The design is first printed with special dyes onto transfer paper, then the paper is pressed against polyester fabric under heat and pressure. At that temperature the dye skips the liquid stage and turns directly into a gas, the polyester fibres open slightly, and the gas enters the fibre. When everything cools, the dye is inside the polymer.
That is the whole trick, and it explains every property of the finished garment. There is no ink film on the surface, so there is nothing to feel, nothing to crack, nothing to peel and nothing to fade off the top. The colour is part of the fibre now. A sublimated jersey will wear out as a garment long before the print shows any sign of failing.
| Sublimation | Screen print | Heat transfer vinyl | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the colour sits | Inside the fibre | On top of the fabric | A film on top of the fabric |
| Hand feel | None at all | Slight to noticeable | Noticeable, plastic |
| Cracks or peels | No | Can crack if under-cured | Can lift at the edges |
| Breathability | Unaffected | Reduced under the print | Blocked under the print |
| Full-colour gradients | Excellent | Halftone only | Not practical |
| Edge-to-edge coverage | Yes | No | No |
Why it suits jerseys specifically
A sports jersey asks for things no other garment asks for, and sublimation answers almost all of them at once.
- It has to breathe. A screen print across a jersey front is a patch of sealed fabric exactly where the player sweats most. Sublimation leaves the fabric as it was.
- It has to survive abuse. Jerseys are washed constantly, pulled at, and dragged along the ground. A print sitting on the surface is a print that will eventually fail.
- It is covered in detail. Club crest, sponsor logos, sleeve trims, side panels, numbers and names — sublimation handles all of it in a single pass at no extra cost per colour.
- Every piece is different. Numbers and names mean each jersey is a unique print. Screen printing charges setup per design, so personalisation gets expensive fast; sublimation does not care.
- The design often runs to the edge. Gradients, panels and patterns that reach the seams cannot be produced any other way.
The last two points are the commercial reason rather than the technical one. On a twenty-player kit with twenty different numbers, sublimation costs essentially the same as twenty identical shirts. No other method comes close. Our comparison of garment printing methods sets out how the costs differ across processes.
The three hard limits
Sublimation is not a universal method. It has three constraints that are physical rather than negotiable, and most disappointed customers ran into one of them.
One: it only works on polyester. The dye needs a polymer to bond into. Cotton has nothing for it to enter, so a sublimated cotton shirt looks fine until the first wash and then most of the colour leaves. A 50/50 blend gives you roughly half the colour density — the result looks permanently faded. For jerseys this is rarely a problem, because performance jerseys should be polyester anyway, but it does mean you cannot sublimate a cotton training tee. The trade-offs are set out in cotton vs polyester.
Two: the base fabric must be light, ideally white. Sublimation dye is transparent and there is no white in the process. Whatever is underneath shows through, and the dye can only ever darken it. So a black jersey is not sublimated black with a white number — it is a white fabric sublimated black everywhere except the number, which is left as the original white fabric. This is why the base garment is always white before printing, and why dark panels mean printing dark rather than buying dark cloth.
Three: it cannot print white or any colour lighter than the fabric. A direct consequence of the second point, but worth stating separately because it changes how artwork has to be built. Any white element in your design must be an area where no dye is applied.
| You want… | Possible with sublimation? | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| A full-colour gradient kit | Yes | — |
| Different numbers on every shirt | Yes | — |
| A design running over the seams | Yes, with cut-and-sew | — |
| White text on a coloured jersey | Yes | Leave the text unprinted |
| A design on a cotton jersey | No | Screen print or DTG |
| Sublimation onto a pre-dyed black jersey | No | Print the black as part of the design |
| Metallic or fluorescent colour | No | Screen print with a speciality ink |
| A sublimated cotton-poly blend | Weak result | Choose full polyester |
Cut-and-sew versus printing a finished garment
There are two ways to make a sublimated jersey, and the difference shows up at the seams.
Printing a finished garment means buying a ready-made polyester shirt and pressing the design onto the front and back. It is faster and cheaper, and it is how most budget custom jerseys are made. The limitation is that a heat press works on a flat surface, so the design cannot continue across a seam, under a sleeve, or into the side panel. You get a print on the chest and the back, not a designed kit.
Cut-and-sew prints the fabric flat, as panels, before the garment is assembled. Each panel is printed with exactly the part of the design that belongs to it, then the panels are sewn together. The design crosses seams, wraps the sleeves, runs into the collar and reaches every edge. This is how professional kits are made, and it is the only way to get a genuinely all-over design.
| Printed finished garment | Cut-and-sew | |
|---|---|---|
| Design crosses seams | No | Yes |
| All-over coverage | No | Yes |
| Sleeve and side panel designs | Limited | Full |
| Cost | Lower | Higher |
| Turnaround | Faster | Longer |
| Minimum order | Often very low | Usually higher |
| Best for | Simple front-and-back designs | Full team kits, patterned designs |
If a quote for an “all-over sublimated kit” is unusually cheap, it is worth asking which of these two you are being quoted for. They are different products.
Designing artwork for sublimation
Sublimation is forgiving about colour and unforgiving about geometry. Most problems with a finished kit trace back to how the file was built rather than to the printing.
- Work at full size. A jersey front is a large area. Artwork supplied small and scaled up will look soft, and sublimation reproduces that softness faithfully.
- Add bleed on cut-and-sew. Every panel needs extra design beyond its cutting line, because fabric shifts slightly during cutting and sewing. Without bleed you get white slivers at the seams.
- Expect a little movement at seams. Even with bleed, a stripe crossing a shoulder seam will not align to the millimetre. Designs that depend on perfect alignment across a seam are a risk; designs that cross it at an angle hide any drift.
- Keep names and numbers inside the safe area. Numbers need to sit clear of seams and clear of the hem, and squad names need room for the longest name in the squad, not the shortest.
- Build white as absence. Anything you want white must be left unprinted, so white elements have to be clean shapes rather than soft fades.
- Convert text to outlines. This avoids font substitution, which on a numbered kit means twenty wrong shirts rather than one.
| Artwork issue | What it looks like on the finished jersey |
|---|---|
| Low-resolution file | Soft, slightly blurred edges |
| No bleed on panels | Thin white lines along the seams |
| Numbers too close to the hem | Numbers that look cropped when worn |
| Thin outlines on a pattern | Lost or broken detail |
| Design depending on exact seam alignment | Visible mismatch across the shoulder |
| Fonts not outlined | Wrong typeface on the whole run |
| Very pale tint over white | Patchy, uneven coverage |
Caring for a sublimated jersey
The print needs no protection at all — it is inside the fibre. What needs protecting is the polyester around it. Polyester does not tolerate heat: a hot wash, a hot dryer or an iron will glaze the surface, and that shine is permanent. Wash cold, dry on low or on a line, and never iron directly on the garment.
One genuine quirk: a sublimated garment can give up a little dye if it is subjected to very high heat again, which is why ironing it face down against another fabric is a bad idea. In normal use this never comes up.
| Sublimated jersey | |
|---|---|
| Wash temperature | Cold |
| Drying | Low heat or air dry |
| Ironing | Avoid; low heat and a cloth if essential |
| Bleach | Never |
| Expected print life | As long as the garment itself |
Frequently asked questions
Will a sublimated number peel off?
No. There is nothing on the surface to peel. The number is either dye inside the fibre or an area of unprinted fabric, so the only way to lose it is to destroy the fabric itself. This is the main reason teams moved away from stitched-on and vinyl numbers.
Can I sublimate onto a cotton jersey?
Not usefully. The dye has no polymer to bond into, so most of the colour washes out. If the jersey has to be cotton, use screen printing or DTG instead, and accept a print you can feel.
Why does my sublimated jersey have faint white lines at the seams?
Almost always missing bleed on a cut-and-sew panel. The design was built exactly to the cutting line, the fabric moved a fraction during sewing, and the unprinted edge now shows. It is an artwork preparation issue, not a printing fault, and it is avoided by extending the design past every cutting line.
Can the whole jersey be one colour, edge to edge?
Yes, with cut-and-sew, because every panel is printed before assembly. If the jersey is printed as a finished garment, the areas a heat press cannot reach flat — under the arms, the side panels, the collar — will stay the base colour.
How many colours can I use?
As many as you like. Sublimation prints from a full-colour file, so a design with two colours and a design with a photographic gradient cost the same. This is the opposite of screen printing, where every additional colour is another screen and another setup charge.
Can each player have a different name and number?
Yes, at no meaningful extra cost. Each shirt is printed from its own file, so personalisation is part of the process rather than an add-on. Send the squad list in a spreadsheet with the exact spelling, number and size for each player, and check it carefully — a typo becomes a printed shirt.
Is sublimation good for training wear and shorts too?
Yes, provided they are polyester. Shorts, sleeves, socks and goalkeeper kit all sublimate the same way, which is how a kit ends up visually consistent across every piece.
How do I order a sublimated kit from you?
Start in the Custom Lab and tell us it is a sublimated kit, or send us your design and squad list directly. We will confirm the fabric, whether the job needs cut-and-sew, and whether your artwork has the bleed and resolution it needs before anything goes to press.
Related: garment printing methods compared and cotton vs polyester.
Ordering a full kit involves more than the printing: how a custom team kit is made, from brief to delivery.
Looking after the polyester is what keeps a kit looking new: how to wash custom printed clothes.
For cricket kit in particular: choosing cricket kit fabric for hot weather.
Before you send anything to a printer: how to prepare artwork for custom apparel.