Get advice to help you create your t-shirt graphics. Discuss t-shirt design software, special effect techniques, or other topics related to creating a t-shirt design on your computer. If you'd rather hire a graphic designer to do the work for you, please post in our Referrals and Recommendations section here.
I'm new to this Forum, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking about starting my own clothing line (Hip Hop style). As far as printing, what is the best quality printing? What is the difference between screen printing and other methods? Also, as far as designs goes do you have the company that does the custom t-shirt do the design once you supply them with a rough sketch or do you guys have someone that is a professional come up with the design first and then provide the custom printing co. with it? Thanks in advance.
I'm new to this Forum, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking about starting my own clothing line (Hip Hop style). As far as printing, what is the best quality printing? What is the difference between screen printing and other methods? Also, as far as designs goes do you have the company that does the custom t-shirt do the design once you supply them with a rough sketch or do you guys have someone that is a professional come up with the design first and then provide the custom printing co. with it? Thanks in advance.
Ray
Hi Ray. You ask a hard question. All methods a popular. Screen printing is a very common method. It involves "burning" an image to a screen with a printed image and chemicals resulting in an image that can then be used with screen printing ink or paint to lay down a graphic on a shirt. This method is involved and requires a decent skill set be developed and some space. It can be quite messy at first. Others use Direct to Garment Printers or DTG. Just as it implies, a printer using special inks prints directly to shirts. Both methods require a dryer, not home kind, to set the ink. Others use inkjet or laser printers to do Digital heat transfers that are then applied to a shirt and pressed with a heat press. This method allows for smaller numbers of shirts to be pressed with many different graphics. For larger runs, say like a hundred shirts or more, most would send the graphic to a commercial plastisol company who would use screen printing type inks to make a transfer to be applied with a heat press as needed. Still others might just contract purchase the printed shirts from a commercial screen printer and then market the shirts wherever. This forum has many sections. If you use the search function and read the home page sections you should be able to gather an extensive amount of information. Welcome to the forums and good luck.
"Also, as far as designs goes do you have the company that does the custom t-shirt do the design once you supply them with a rough sketch or do you guys have someone that is a professional come up with the design first and then provide the custom printing co. with it?"
I'm sorry Ray, I missed the second part of the question. Companies do all kinds of things. Some do all their own designs in vector format and submit the art exactly as needed to reproduce it. Others have employees who do the art. Some seem to contract out for art work, while others just buy licensed or royalty free images to print. When you submit an original or licensed graphic to a printing or heat transfer reproduction company if its not exactly in the right format for printing they usually have graphic artists who can correct it for a fee. It is cheaper and faster if the graphic is in the needed format first. Also some graphics companies will use your rough sketch to make a finished graphic for a fee. Be sure you fully understand the cost of each service as it can be expensive depending on the work involved. Hope this helps.
NEW to Forum - BEST Quality T-Shirts 
