3D Printing

3D printing builds an object up from a digital file, layer by layer, so a design that exists only on a screen becomes something you can pick up. For a brand, that is the difference between describing an idea and putting it on the table.

We run 3D printing at our Leicester site alongside apparel production, and it tends to get used for the things that sit around a clothing range rather than the clothing itself: prototypes, promotional pieces, custom merchandise and decorative elements.

What Brands Use 3D Printing For

Prototypes and Physical Samples

Turning a concept into an object you can hold, assess and put in front of other people. Nothing moves a decision along like a physical sample, and nothing exposes a flaw in a design faster than holding it. Iterating in the physical world early is far cheaper than discovering the problem at production.

Custom Merchandise

Merch that is not a printed garment. For brands, bands and campaigns already producing apparel, a three-dimensional piece gives a range something that stands apart from another tee, and it works particularly well as a limited or premium item.

Promotional Pieces

Branded objects for campaigns, events and trade activity. The advantage over conventional promotional print is that an object gets kept, and a kept object keeps working long after a flyer has gone in the bin.

Decorative and Display Elements

Pieces for retail display, in-store activity, events and window work, where a shape has to exist physically and does not exist as a stock item anywhere.

Accuracy and Finish

Detail is where 3D printing either works or looks cheap. Intricate texture, sharp definition and dimensional consistency across a batch are what make a printed object read as a product rather than a novelty, and they come from setting the job up properly rather than sending a file to a machine.

Our team works through the design and print process with you, and if a file needs adapting to print well, we will say so before it goes on the bed. A model that looks perfect on screen can have wall thicknesses, overhangs or details that will not survive being built physically.

Working With Us on a 3D Print

Tell us what the object is, what it is for and how many you need. If you have a model file, send it. If you have a sketch, a photograph or a description, our design team works on the same site and can help develop it into something printable.

Minimums and lead times depend entirely on the piece, its size and the quantity, and we confirm them when we quote. A single prototype and a run of promotional items are very different jobs.

3D Printing Alongside Apparel

Most of the brands we 3D print for are already producing clothing with us. A collection with a matching object, a tour with a merch piece that is not a garment, a campaign that needs a physical thing to hand over: those all become simpler when the apparel and the object come from one supplier, on one schedule, matched to one set of brand colours.

Everything else we do sits on the same site, including screen printing, embroidery, the dyehouse, printed media and garment finishing, so a range can be produced, packed and shipped as one job.