Custom Sublimated Mugs

One thing we have learned over the years of making custom sublimated mugs is that image is everything. What does that really mean? It means our customers want maximum coverage, maximum color accuracy and great service when ordering mugs.

While there are several ways to decorate mugs, sublimated print technology has improved to result in bolder colors, and truer overall tone than in the past.

With sublimation, we are always printing with CMYK printing using cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks- – nobody knows why the K stands for black but it does! Small dots in those four colors overlap to blend and create the visual effect of full- color printing. It is the same way a photograph is printed in a magazine with those four color process dots. This means that even solid areas of color that are printed this way will be made up of tiny dots in varying percentages to create the perception of the solid color you want to capture.

So, while sublimated mugs and any CMYK printing is a great way to get full color imagery it will never quite have the same effect as printing in spot color inks.

We print with spot color or with sublimation and depending on the design, we will help guide these decisions when we discuss your project. Each technique has benefits on your final mugs.

The way the decorating process works is that the areas of the mug that will be printed with sublimated imagery are treated with a coating that allows that print to adhere and be fined into the glaze of the mug. This makes sure that your decorated mugs are permanent and safe for regular dishwasher usage.

Sometimes clients want to print on the inside of the mug as well, and we now offer interior lip printing with this type of decoration as well as traditional exterior printing. For lip printing, the mugs are prepared with one area at the lip that can receive a print. We are not able to print all over on the interior but we can print at the lip if your design calls for it.