When it comes to woven ties and printed ties, there is a significant difference in the way both custom ties are designed.

The difference in design of both these custom ties is significant, especially in South Africa where we have more challenges in design and what can be achieved from a design perspective very much because of the limitations we have with regards to modern and up to date equipment and machinery.

This stands to reason although, simply because the cost of new up to date weaving machines would simply not be feasible given our small market in SA, the offtake would not pay anybody back for investing serious cash into this equipment designed to produce fabric from which woven ties are manufactured.

When it comes to the Chinese for example, it is almost as easy for them to manufacture designs and samples as it is for a sublimation printer to manufacture tie examples or samples for printed ties.

Not so with us, the process is not so simple.

So with this in mind, designing custom ties for clients who wish to have woven ties, (no matter in which format- can be corporate ties, branded ties, company ties, matric ties, club ties, promotional ties and even custom scarves and corporate scarves which pretty much fall under the same banner- please note though that one does not manufacture custom scarves or corporate scarves using woven tie fabrics, this will not work as the fabric is too heavy and the back side is not attractive from a visual perspective.) is a completely different process to designing printed ties, no matter that both woven ties and printed ties are custom ties.

The design is more limited in what can be achieved and the colours will not be as vibrant as they would be for printed ties simply because although woven ties give an upmarket and often superior look to printed ties, it is often not possible to achieve the vibrancy in the colours and design that can be achieved when designing for printed custom ties.

One reason for this when it comes to woven fabric for woven ties is that the warp or background of the fabric is black and any other threads that are woven over the warp, being called the weft are influenced from a colour perspective by the fact that they are going directly onto a black warp and so with certain colours, especially the lighter, brighter colours, they tend to be dulled or dirtied by the black warp- not significantly but enough to take away the crispness of the colour.

Also, we must remember that from a design  perspective of custom ties and custom scarves, the design process is so different because there are limitations from a woven ties perspective and virtually no limitations when it comes to the design aspect and implementation for printed ties.

The process is so vastly different when one has limitations or no limitations.