One of our earliest posts on the You Design It blog was an informational about all over T-shirt printing. We have received many phone calls, a lot of e-mails, and quite a few comments regarding the subject. One of those contacts was a vendor that is able to not only print over the seams, but also has a printing area capable of 21″ x 24″. This is much larger than the typical 12″ x 14″ size screen that we are used to working with.

It wasn’t long after they first contacted us that we were already able to test out our first job. Our customer wanted a lower off centered front print and an oversized back print that would reach from seam to seam. The T-shirt printing came out beautifully, and here’s the picture to prove it:

One of the best features about us offering oversized printing capabilities is that we only need a minimum of 72 versus the industry standard of 144 to 288. We look forward to printing a whole lot more of these in the future and hope your custom T-shirt project is next.

For every printed color on your T-shirts there is a subsequent screen used in the screen printing process.The actual screen used for T-shirt screen printing is really a piece of finely woven polyester stretched over a frame of aluminum or wood. These screens have the design for that color ink burned onto them to allow the ink to pass through to the T-shirt. The ink is pressed through the screen with a squeegee. Here is a picture of a screen for custom printed t shirts:

A typical screen printing press can have anywhere from four screens all the way to 16 screens attached to them.Here is a picture of what a t-shirt screen printing press looks like:

Most times when you’re getting a quote for custom T-shirts there will be additional fees for screens and screen set-up. However, at You Design It, we give you all-inclusive pricing so that you don’t have to deal with hidden fees and charges.

One of the biggest factors in determining the price of custom screen printed T-shirts has to do with the amount of printed ink colors on the T-shirts. At You Design It we like to keep it simple and count up the total colors needed to print the T-shirts. For instance, if you are printing blue ink and red ink on the front of the T-shirt and nothing on the back, that is considered two total colors. Similarly, if you are printing blue ink on the front of the T-shirt in red ink on the back of the T-shirt, that is also considered two colors.

However, one of the most confusing parts of counting up screen printing colors is separating the print locations. For example, if you print black on the front and black on the back, that is still considered two colors. With that said, if you print black ink on the front and blacking on the back and add one more location of black ink on the sleeve, then you have three total screen print colors.

Knowing this information will empower you to optimize your design and lower the cost of your custom screen printed t shirts.

Have you ever received a quote for custom printed T-shirts to find out that darker shirts cost more? There are quite a few reasons for this and we would like to share these reasons with you.

The first and most obvious reason is that dark T-shirts cost more blank when they are purchased from the manufacturers. This is due mainly in part to the additional process it takes to dye the shirt to that darker color.

The second and less obvious reason that custom printed dark T-shirts cost more is because of the under basing and flashing. What is under basing and flashing when it comes to screen printed T shirts? Under basing is taking the original artwork and converting all the colors to white to print below the artwork to serve as the base color. This allows the colors printed on top to really pop and show up vibrantly. Once you have a good under base laid down on the shirt and you begin to print the colors on top, it is important to print each color twice. This part of the screen printing process is known as flashing.

All of these additional steps in the T-shirt printing process require more products, labor and time. At You Design It, you are safe in knowing that we do all these extra steps to ensure that your design is printed the best it can be.

We have thought about this post for quite some time and weren’t sure if we should make the comparison over the two t-shirts more technical or keep it general. We have decided to just keep it simple and explain the general feeling for the two styles of t-shirts.

Most people choose custom t-shirts with a 100% cotton t-shirt based on two factors. They are considered softer in most cases and are typically better for printing because the cotton accepts the printing a little better.

A blend t shirt is usually the choice when it comes to durability and the shrinking factor. A custom printed blend t-shirt is more resistant to shrinking after washing and drying. A blend, which usually consists of polyester and cotton, is also more durable because of the synthetic fibers that make up 40-50% of the t-shirt.

Either way, we carry both styles with high quality brands like Gildan, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom.

Embroidery digitizing is the process of taking an artwork file and putting it into a format that the embroidery machine can use. This file will provide all of the instructions for the embroidery machine to stitch out the correct colors and patterns of the custom embroidery project. There are various software programs that can accomplish the digitizing process through a small amount of training by the user.

Embroidery digitizing is usually considered the setup fee involved in any custom embroidery project. The pricing is based on the 1000’s of stitches that are required to complete the artwork design. The final cost would be a set dollar amount ranging from $5-$10 per thousand stitches in the custom embroidery design. This process can take anywhere from one to three days, depending on intricacy of the design.

At You Design It, our pricing is all inclusive, so you’ll never have to worry about any hidden fees or digitizing costs with any of our jobs.