Today we show you how to perfectly sublimate your design to your mug.
1. Prepare all the required materials
Make sure you have what you need. Items required are as follows: Inkjet printer with sublimation ink installed, graphic art software such as Adobe Illustrator or Coral Draw, sublimation paper, mug heat press, scissors or art knife and ruler, thermal tape, and some blank sublimation mugs.
2. Make your design
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Find a template.
You can design your own or download one from the design website. Usually, the template downloaded from the network will indicate the specific printing location information.
For example, you want to sublime an 11 oz, 325 ml, 260 mm diameter cup. The print area on both sides of the cup is 70mm wide x 90mm high. Keep important text and graphics 2.5mm away from the edge of the magenta cut or guide line. So when you cut the finished sheet, you don't accidentally cut into your logo. Background graphics should extend 2.5mm beyond the cut line.
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Start your design.
Open it in AI and place your logo or artwork in the specified location. If you only want 1 logo on each cup, place your logo on the right. This means right-handed people will see your logo when they pick up your mug. It's actually on the wrong side, and once we print it mirrored, it's on the right side, which is the left side of the page.
Once you are happy with the placement of the logo/logo, you can print your work.
In general, with most high-quality sublimation transfer papers, you don't need to put a lot of ink on the dye sublimation paper. If you are using an EPSON printer, good settings are Quality Options: Photo, Paper Type: Plain Paper, and under the Page Layout tab make sure the Mirror checkbox is checked. Click OK, then click the print button, then click the print button again in the AI print window.
Now that you have printed the page, it will look a bit different from your design colors. Don't worry about the faded look. This is what all sublimation prints look like on sublimation paper. The magic happens once the image is heat pressed/printed onto the mug. This is when the ink becomes gaseous and is absorbed into the polyester coating on the surface of the sublimation cup.
3. Sublime your design
The next step is to cut out your design with scissors or an art knife and ruler.
Cut about 1mm inside the magenta cutting line. Don't leave any magenta lines on the paper, it will print on your mug.
4. Align your design with your cup
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All cup shapes are differentiated, so pay attention.
If the cup is slightly tapered, so before we wrap the artwork around the cup, we'll make two cuts in the middle of the paper so we end up cutting about 3/4 of the way through the paper. What this will allow us to do is, once we have the paper attached to the cup, with the image facing the cup, the cutout allows us to adjust the center of the paper up or down to allow for tapering. Otherwise your text may not be parallel to the bottom of your cup.
You will also notice that most of the time you can see your design on the sublimation paper through the paper, so this will help you align the images so they are level. So now cut out the thermal tape and stick them to the edge of the bench. Carefully wrap the paper around the cup with the image facing inward. Now rotate the paper back and forth until the distance between the ends and the handle is about the same, and the top and bottom of the mug are the same distance. Once this is done, stick a strip of tape over the center of each end of the paper. Now check that your text is aligned with the bottom of the cup. If not, you can slide the paper up to where the cutout is. Once you have this right, place the last piece of thermal tape half on the bottom cut and half on the cup to hold the paper in place. If not, you can slide the paper up to where the cutout is. Once you have this right, place the last piece of thermal tape half on the bottom cut and half on the cup to hold the paper in place. If not, you can slide the paper up to where the cutout is. Once you have this right, place the last piece of thermal tape half on the bottom cut and half on the cup to hold the paper in place.
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Adjust the position of the cup
Now adjust the pressure setting of your mug press so that when you press your mug on the press it will have medium to heavy pressure. You can tell if you have enough pressure because the teflon and silicone rubber backing of the cup press will bend a little at the top and bottom of the cup.
5. Set temperature
Now plug in your mug press and set the temperature to 400°F / 204°C and the timer to 180 seconds, then preheat it to the desired temperature. Different sublimation papers may require lower temperatures or longer or shorter heating times. Once the press reaches the set temperature, slide your mug into place and turn off the mug press. If you have a timer with a countdown timer, it should start automatically, or you may have to hit the enter button to start the timer.
6. Peel off the sublimation paper
Once the time is up, release the pressure from the press and remove the cup by the handle, then use your fingernail to pick up an edge on one end of the paper, then tear the paper off the cup smoothly
Be careful of hot hands! to the most exciting moment. Note that the cup is still hot and the image will still release ink gas, if you don't remove it in a smooth motion you may have ghosting (double image), overspray or a slightly blurred image. This can also happen if you cook the cup for too long.
7. Your mug design is born
Now place your mug on a heat-resistant surface until it's cool enough to handle. If you did everything right, you should get this result.
Conclusion
The above are the detailed steps for the sublimation mug we bring to you. We are a professional sublimation paper manufacturer, if you need to purchase sublimation paper in bulk, or have related questions, you can contact us!
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