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I had my first sample shirts printed last week and ran into the biggest "duh!" i sent my designs to the printer (PSD of design and JPEG for a look of the finished product) and she called me back like, "how should they be sized to fit the shirt?" I felt like a dumb ***! I assumed because I sent her the jpeg showing how i expected the design to look once completed she would be able to match it up, (I guess). how do i set the actual sizes of the designs? i'm using the Go media t-shirt Templates which look very realistic but i guess the dimensions are not actual size.
can any body HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not a dumb question. When you sent the files and the sample file showing the placement, did you give her that information? What sizes is the design going on and how is it being printed, -screen, transfer, dtg? Did you print out your file at it's original size before you put it in the template and how much did you increase or decrease it in the template. sometimes you have to do a dry run to see it before it's printed. What I mean by dry run is did you lay a shirt out and printed out your design and give it a trim and place it on the shirt so you can get an idea of the size and placement you have in the template.
Unless you are having two sizes done to accommodate childrens, ladies, and standard adult sizes, a good rule of thumb is to not have your design any wider than 10-11 inches. While this size may look smallish on an XL or XXL, it won't look too large on ladies and children's.
Woot Shirt : One Shirt, No Shoes, No Service (SM) is a good site to look at for size suggestions. On each of their shirts, they tell you the size of the design. they use two. Find one of their shirts with a design the general shape of your design and you can see what size they use.
thanks,
its being done in DTG. this was to be a sample run so the printer did it on a size: small. this is my first time around on this (as you can tell) but the printer wasn't sure about how i would know what to size my designs at. thanks for the info, its a little hard because I am in iraq and the printer is stateside. I think it might be better to have a local printer in Ga where my wife/partner (wife is french for boss) is so that we can make those on the spot corrections. I just wish there was some form of template that sized to actual T's.
cool,
i didn't say it before but most of my designs run the ful length of the shirts. does that make it harder for printers or would this not really matter?
cool,
i didn't say it before but most of my designs run the ful length of the shirts. does that make it harder for printers or would this not really matter?
Not sure on a DTG. Ask your printer.
It would be more difficult on conventional printing if the design runs off the edges of the shirt.
On a DTG you have to consider the bed size, which generally the largest is 16 x 20. you should check with your printer for their specs of how much of the bed space is live area. you should have gotten all the specs from your printer anyway so that you know their limitations and requirements- how many colors can they do, spot colors. Besides using Go Media templates ask your printer what program she is using to set up. See if she has any samples of the range in which she can print on various size shirts and that would help even more
hello everybody,
I just got a reply from the newest printer who had this to say:
"You will need a specialty printer to do this type work and probably large quantities. Most screen printers can print up to approx 14 inches. The type of printing you need is normally doe prior to the shirt being made or with an oversized press"
does any one have any idea where i will find a specialty printer? I'm having a hard enough time finding a good DTG printer, crappers!!!!
size designs for printing 
