How to design a tshirt
Here is something that I do many, many times a day. 6 days a week. It’s almost like second nature to me. So, I thought that I would share my knowledge, however flawed it may be. I am self taught. Did not go to art school, screen printing school … just the school of hard knocks. This will not be a detailed tutorial … just an overview for designers to think about when putting together a tshirt design. Since I am a screen printer and an artist … I think in terms of how I am going to do something before I start.
Lots of designers create really great graphics with no thought of how someone is actually going to get that on a tshirt.
So I start with the money aspect. In other words … how much is my customer actually going to pay for this design and the tshirts it will go on. There is no need in creating a 6 color design on a black shirt if you customer is only willing to pay $5 a shirt. These days … everyone wants a shirt that only costs $5.
The next thing that jumps into my mind is … what color shirt is this going on. It matters! I try and get my client to give me a hint as to what color they are thinking about. Even if all they can come up with is … is it a light colored shirt or a dark. If it is a dark colored shirt … I am thinking about the underbase. Underbase, for screen printers, is a layer of ink that is applied before the colors go on. Why is this necessary? Well, I could go into this long explanation of garment dyes, migration, fibrillation … and other weird sounding stuff … but, in short … it’s a blank canvas that needs to be there so that the colors on the shirt with pop … and not look dull.
Now, I am ready to start. I open my vector software … Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw … not photoshop … and away I go. Please, please hear me.
Photoshop produces great raster images … and really cool effects, but unless you are willing to spend some bucks on process separations … in the long run they will have to be converted to vector art.
I can’t tell you how many conversations I have on the phone everyday with web designers who are designing for tshirts. They are frustrated … I am frustrated. Do yourself a favor and start with vector … it is what we will have to end up with if we are printing spot colors on your shirt.
My starting canvas is a tshirt mock up (vector) that you can find free on the web … any where. My color palettes are the actual tshirt colors from the major tshirt manufactures. You can usually find the pantone colors codes on their websites. So if I am going to print the design on an Anvil shirt that is the “lake” color, I start with that on my mock up. Now I try and produce a graphic that my client will be happy with in corresponding to their theme. Again, I already know that they want a two color design on the front and a one color on the back. My ink colors, also produced with pantone color codes from the ink manufactures, are chosen and applied.
The question of size and placement of imprint comes up a lot in the design process. Typically, a full chest imprint is any where from 10 inches – 12 inches across. That would hold true for a full back imprint. A left chest imprint would be 3.5 inches – 4 inches wide. A back tag imprint (printed a couple of inches below the collar) 3 – 5 inches wide.
These are the typical sizes and placements. Of course we do a lot more than just the typical. Wrap arounds, over the seams, and all over prints are terms bounced around the shop and with potential customers.
When you get into all over prints … or really oversized prints … you have to remember an important rule. The size of the design is static … but the size of your tshirt is dynamic, it changes. If you want to only spend the bucks for one set of screens for a job … then remember this. You can only goes as big as your smallest shirt. That image is going to look like the mock up on the small and medium shirts … and then it’s going to look like the image shrunk on larger sizes.
After I have finished the design. I save it for the 15th time. Always save your design during the process, several times. Nothing is more frustrating than working for an hour and then your program hoses and you have to start over.
And yes, Macs will hose out just like a PC … I have both … I know.
Then I convert the design to a jpg or a pdf and email it to my client for approval or revisions. On a pet peeve note … in your designing on a dark shirt … please think about the amount of ink that will be applied and how comfortable an eight inch round design of pure plastisol inks will feel to the end user.
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