T-shirts printing

Screen Printing on dark garments is certainly not without it’s challenges, however dark shirts still seem to be the most popular choice among our customers. I have talked to some extent of the shortfalls of most digital garment printers in this arena on previous posts and will spend a few minutes here explaining what you might expect when you order your custom screen printing on black or dark colored shirts.

The first thing to expect is that dark shirts will always cost more for a couple of reasons. First, the shirt itself costs more than white shirts and second, printing on dark shirts in most cases will require an underbase coat to make your design colors appear vibrant and opaque. The process of an underbase requires that a separate screen be made, or at least a print flash print process be employed, either of which requires additional labor and time to perform thus driving the cost of your shirts upward.

The second thing to understand and expect is that your design will have a heavier hand due to the above mentioned process and thicker ink deposits. This is usually not a big problem as many designs have open areas within the design and don’t require solid coverage over the entire area of the design.

For designs that have solid coverage over large areas however, it can become like a rubber patch on your chest or back. There are some procedures that can aleviate this problem such as discharge inks which for lack of better terms removes the dye of the shirt making it more of a natural color and thus easier to print lighter colors over, and or the use of water base inks are used with good success. Either of these processes are not used by every printer you may visit so you may find yourself shopping longer if this is something you want in a dark shirt, not to mention some of the discharge chemicals are not very delightful and can cause skin irritation.

Knowing what to expect when ordering custom screen printing on dark shirts will help you avoid surprises when you pick up the finished product and may save some time in the ordering process as these characteristics may influence the color of shirts that you want to order. Visit our website to learn more about ordering your custom T shirts.

Technorati Tags: Custom Screen Printing, Custom T shirts, Screen Printing

Designing a Logo for t-shirts printing or embroidery is not difficult, but their are a few things to keep in mind during the design process. First let me say here that I am sure that their are a multitude of Graphic Designers out there that are very good at what they do, and are knowledgeable in their craft to a level far beyond what we do on a day to day basis. Having said that, however, with all due respect, I am convinced that many of them are not educated on the details of Screen Print or embroidery. I say this because we get logos in our operation on a regular basis that just are not screen print or embroidery friendly.  Unfortunately, most of these folks have paid a lot of money to have their logo designed, and they look absolutely brilliant, only problem is, some of those details that look excellent on a computer screen or on paper simply will not work and have to go away.  That’s too bad, because didn’t these people pay for a logo that would stay consistent throughout all applications?  Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you have your logo designed so that it will work well for t-shirts printing or embroidery as well as all the other applications.

Make sure your logo will look good in a black and white version as well as full color.

It is easy to forget that you may want to put your logo in places that more than one color either is not possible or is cost prohibitive. One example of this is for Promotional Products like pens where full color logos are just not practical. Think ahead here, and have your logo designed so that a single color version still looks good.

Watch the Fine Detail.

Fine detail is pretty in a picture, but it becomes very problematic especially for embroidery. Screen printing is better suited to handle this, but is not without it’s challenges.  The bottom line is that there are many elements that look great on a computer screen but absolutely cannot be embroidered and are difficult for screen printing.  Very small text, or very fine lines are the culprit here, and of course will cause the most trouble when used for a left chest logo. The goal is to keep the columns or fine lines in your design at least 1 mm in thickness.  As for text, while smaller than 1/4 inch in height can many times be accomplished that is a good goal to shoot for and at the same time, for left chest purposes, no more than 17 to 20 characters including spaces in a single row.  Avoid outlines on lettering less than 1 inch in height, particularily with embroidery as they generally do not look or work the best.  One final note is that gradients are more difficult for embroidery and are more expensive to have digitized. 

Recommendations

Our Recommendations are that if you can’t keep your design within these guidelines Have two different versions created that you can be happy with, one with all the bells and whistles, and one specifically for embroidery and or screen printing. Aside from that be sure that you get all of your artwork on disc from your designer saved in a number of formats to include both raster and vector images. Even though you may not be able to open some of these formats they will be extremely useful to your supplier, and you will have them ready to go when the need arises.

Follow these tips for logo design and your t-shirts printing or Embroidery will be much more productive and you will be more pleased with the result.

Technorati Tags: embroidery, graphic design, silkscreen shirts, t shirt prints, t-shirts printing