What is puff print, and when should you use it?

Puff is a plastisol ink with a blowing agent mixed in. It is screen printed like any other plastisol — through a screen, one colour per pass — but when the garment goes through the curing tunnel at around 160°C the agent activates and the ink expands, rising one to two millimetres off the fabric. The surface is matte and slightly soft to the touch.

Because it is screen printed, puff has the same rules as screen print: one screen per colour, a setup per screen, and a per-piece price that falls sharply with quantity. Puff ink is thicker and printed through a coarser mesh, so fine detail is not possible — the effect works on bold shapes.

The rise can be tuned. A low puff gives subtle texture; a high puff gives the pronounced, pillowy look streetwear brands ask for. We show both on the strike-off before bulk.

Bold lettering and simple shapes. A wordmark, a large single letter, a simple icon — anything with clean edges and no thin lines. Text under about 8 millimetres in stroke width loses its shape when it rises.

Hoodies and sweatshirts. The heavier fleece carries the raised ink well and the effect reads clearly against a flat surface. Puff on a 500 gsm hoodie is the classic streetwear combination.

Single-colour or two-colour designs. Every colour is a screen and registering puff colours against each other is exacting, so most puff designs are one colour, occasionally two.

Quantity from around 100. Setup makes puff expensive under that; above it the per-piece price is close to a standard screen print.

Fine detail. Thin lines, small text, halftones and gradients cannot be puff printed. They blur or break as the ink rises.

Very light fabrics. On a 140 gsm tee the raised ink can distort the fabric around it. Puff wants a garment with body — 200 gsm cotton at minimum, fleece ideally.

Large solid areas. A puff panel bigger than a hand becomes stiff and heavy. Keep puff to lettering and marks.

Small orders. Under about 100 pieces the screen setup dominates. For a raised effect on a small run, 3D embroidery is often the better value.

Priced as a screen print with a surcharge for the ink and the coarser mesh. From our current rate sheet a one-colour puff print at chest size adds roughly $1.40 per garment at 100 pieces, a large front or back around $3, both falling with quantity, plus one screen setup per colour.

On a 500 gsm classic hoodie starting near $31 at 50 pieces, a single-colour puff wordmark on the chest lands around $33 per piece at 100. The calculator prices screen print live; puff is quoted against your artwork with the surcharge applied.

We run puff on our screen-print line in Lahore alongside standard plastisol, water-based and discharge inks, and 3D puff embroidery on the embroidery heads next to it — so the same order can carry a puff wordmark on the front and a 3D embroidered mark on a matching cap.

Minimum 50 pieces, though puff makes most sense from 100. As fast as 7–10 days on our hoodies and sweatshirts; worldwide shipping from Lahore, with streetwear brands in the UK, US and Australia among our regular puff-print customers.