[koukouvaya]

hi there

im looking into manufacturing my t shirt designs for the first time and have a few questions. i hope some you would be kind enough to share some advice with me. please forgive me for my newbishness. i am a graphic designer but have not printed my own shirts before.

i have some vectorized designs placed on t shirt templates. i have subdivided these into ranges - designs grouped under a common categories.

i want to implement some sort of print on design system, as oppose to buying tons of stock up front. i'll take orders on my site if all goes well..

so here we are -

1. is it possible to use a POD setup for shirts? are there always setup fees for each print method ( i know you offer a variety of choices?)

2. in product design we are often given an unfolded net of a product to design on and visualise from. do t shirt printers use similar nets in a CAD like process for the unassembled fabric of shirts? (though to me this sounds like textile design instead?) or, alternatively is design always imprinted onto assembled shirts and done in vector imaging software?

3. in regards to the ornamental addons to shirts, such as embroidery and other things that arent printed onto the item, but stitched [shiny things ] can this be done on a POD basis?

 

[ole Jobe]

Direct to Garment, inkjet transfers, embroidery are one at a time processes. Or you could buy plastisol transfers and a heat press for on demand orders. By far, most all T-shirt printing is done on finished shirts. Otherwise would require tremendous volume. Many people use Photoshop, which is not a vector program, for all designs. Others use a combination of vector and bitmap images. God Bless.