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Many of our clients come to iBrolly because they want to give their customers useful promotional gifts that will be appreciated. A high quality, nicely designed custom umbrella is exactly that. However, we took the whole "useful promotional gift" thing to a whole new level with a few of our recent projects, where we used interior printing to make umbrellas even more practical than they already are.

Most recently, our iBrolly UK office worked with a London-based estate agency to create these gorgeous promotional umbrellas with full colour map of the west side of London printed on the inside. So, when you're strolling through London from one apartment to the next looking for your next dream home - just look up at the map printed on the inside of your umbrella to find your way. We love it! Printing and manufacturing these particular custom umbrellas was something that could only be done in an umbrella factory, as each fabric umbrella panel had to be printed in colour before they were sewn together. After that, the umbrella canopy gets strung onto the frame. This is the only way to print all over the entire umbrella canopy.

We created another handy design in a similar theme for a golf course. In this case we used a large vented golf umbrella and printed a smaller map on one of the bottom panels. The exterior print on this umbrella was quite special as well, as we were able to print a full colour photographic image on it. And, by using a silver coating on the inside of the umbrella canopy, this promotional umbrella looks great both inside and out.

For more information, or to request a free custom umbrella design for your company or organisation, please contact your local iBrolly office. We have representatives throughout North America and Europe. If we do not have a representative office in your country, please contact iBrolly Custom Umbrellas UK for your next order of promotional umbrellas.

Would you like to print a full colour painting, photograph, or illustration on an umbrella? You’re not alone! In fact we get many calls from artists and photographers wanting to put their work on umbrella canopies – so many we’ve decided to write a blog about it.

The answer to your first question is YES…We can do it. Now, your next question is likely going to be: How much does it cost? That’s where it gets a little more complicated, because the cost depends upon the complexity of the design. This article will discuss how our umbrella printing and manufacturing process works, which will help you to design an artistic umbrella that will be affordable to manufacture.

Umbrella Printing - The Basics

All standard umbrellas are made of 8 triangular shaped fabric panels, usually made from polyester. If we want to print something all over an entire umbrella canopy, we need to first print the individual fabric panels, then sew them together, then string the canopy onto the umbrella frame. The fabric panels are most often printed by screen printing, especially for simple jobs requiring only a few colours. For full colour print, we often use heat transfer printing.

Each time we have a unique, or different, panel design, we need to make new print screens or heat transfer films. For example, let’s say you wanted to print a simple one colour logo on two panels (i.e. the same design/print repeated 2 times on the umbrella). In that case we would only need to make one print screen with one colour. Easy.

Now, if you want to cover an entire umbrella canopy with one painting or photograph, you’ll need eight different print screens or films, and it’s likely they’re all going to be full colour. The average cost of a full colour, full panel, print film or screen is around $300. Let’s do the math: $300 x 8 panels = $2,400. If you’re thinking of manufacturing a small quantity, like 100 umbrellas, your unit cost has just gone through the roof! On the other hand, if you’re going to manufacture 2,000 umbrellas, it works.

WAIT! Don’t get discouraged! There are ways of producing small quantities of artistic umbrellas at a reasonable cost – you just need to get a little more creative with your design. Here’s how…

Custom Umbrella Design Tips

• Repeating the same design on more than one panel greatly reduces set-up costs. For example in the designs below, we only need to make one film for printing ($300) as compared to eight films ($2,400!)
• Alternate printed umbrella panels with blank panels.
• Limit the number of colours in your design.
• Try not to have complicated patterns overlap the panels.
• Volume volume volume… the more you manufacture, the lower the unit cost.
• Ask us to provide you with a free promotional umbrella design by contacting our head office. We have excellent designers that know how to design umbrellas that will be affordable to print.

We hope you find this article in helping you to design a beautiful umbrella, and if you’d like to bring the project to life we’re here to help.  Remember, if you decide to go for it, you only pay the set-up fees once. We keep your print screens on file, so when you’re ready to order more umbrellas you only have to pay for the umbrellas themselves.

Slapping a logo on a flimsy umbrella is not going to say much about your brand. Have you seen how many people walk the streets with broken umbrellas…? Do you really want your logo to be on one of them? We don’t think so. Introducing iBrolly, a promotional umbrella company that manufactures only high quality, durable, creatively designed umbrellas.

At iBrolly we think of umbrellas as media space – free, untapped, non-traditional outdoor media – that can be leveraged with a little creativity.

Why can’t any umbrella company do this? Firstly you need great creative design combined with a bit of marketing savvy. Then you need serious printing and manufacturing technology in order to reproduce those creative designs: The iBrolly umbrella factory is far from your average screen-printing shop.

iBrolly is an OEM (original equipment manufacturer), that utilizes several different techniques from heat-transfer printing to plastics injection molding, enabling production of groovy features like custom shaped handles and Pantone colour matched frames. We pay close attention to finishing, and can handle the smallest details such as embroidered tie wraps, stitched perimeter trim, and branded handles. Add a few lines of messaging, perhaps even printed on the interior of the canopy, and you’ve got a powerful piece of promotional advertising.

We realize that business owners need to spend their marketing dollars wisely, and the right umbrellas can be a great long-term advertising investment.

The key is to use innovative design and messaging so that your brand gets noticed, and to maximize your ROI by investing in high quality umbrellas that will last for years.

An order of a few hundred of umbrellas can be less expensive than running a print ad for one day in a local newspaper. If you calculate the cost per impression alone, it makes good sense, not to mention the experiential factor of giving customers high quality branded gifts they’ll use for years to come.