You may find design inspiration from:

• A design on our website or social media that you prefer and would like to customise to your requirements.


• You have provided us with a design concept brief for our graphic designers to follow.


• You have organised a time to come in and sit down with our graphic designers to talk through your design requirements while they implement your instructions on the computer at the same time.

Our team will require any logos or images in a vector format. If you are unable to supply this format, we can convert it into this format. Any photographs incorporated in your design will need to be high resolution. After finalising the concept, we will provide the final design for approval. Once approved, we then move into the printing stage. The artwork process normally takes 2-5 days, but may be longer during peak times.

When the concept has been approved by you, our team will transfer the concept to the final print files. This process involves creating a print file for every size and design required to produce your apparel.

If you have any concerns about specific colours, positioning or logo sizes, we can print and sublimate a miniature flat print for you to check before we go into final print production.

Our Hard North apparel is printed using a state-of-the-art wide-format dye sublimation printer. This printer allows us to print large volumes accurately and quickly, meeting all of our deadlines.

Your artwork is printed in reverse onto dye sublimation paper using sublimation inks, all of which are sourced from our Australian supplier. As your order is being printed, it is fed onto a roll ready for the next step.

The next step in the process is heat-pressing your design into the fabric. This is where the printed sublimated paper and polyester fabric come together and your apparel begins to take shape.

Using our heat press, the sublimation paper roll is loaded and fed into the heat press. Simultaneously, the fabric roll is loaded and laid on top of the sublimation paper. They then travel through the heat press rollers, which are set at 210 degrees Celsius.

During this step, the sublimation inks are transformed into a gas and fused into the polyester material. This creates the custom apparel piece without altering the fabric properties.

Once your design is sublimated into the material roll, our team delivers the material roll to a local sewing company that Hard North has a long-term working relationship with. This family-owned and operated company has been working alongside us from the beginning!

Our work has come a long way from the past, but it still begins with a paper pattern. However, we embrace the new age of technology by scanning that pattern into software, allowing us to accurately grade all sizes.

And let’s not forget about our amazing fabric cutters who are truly experts in their field.

The next big step in the process is sewing the cut parts together. This time-consuming process requires meticulous attention to detail to ensure that the individual pieces fit together perfectly to create your custom-designed apparel.

During this step, our seamstresses add additional features like buttons on the placket, round neck or V neck options, pockets, and any other optional features.

The finished product is returned to Hard North, where our team completes the process of quality checking. This is the final step in the manufacturing of the apparel.

This process involves the following checks:

• Trimming - removing any loose threads from the garment.


• Quality Control - inspect all pieces to ensure they meet our quality standards.


• Count, fold and bag items


• individually count, fold and place garments into bags, ready to be collected.

Once apparel passes the quality check, your order goes to our finance department. The accounts department will inform you that your items are ready for collection and arrange payment.