T-Shirts and More!

Most customers don’t realize all the options and specialty prints that can be used in their custom printed t-shirts.  Next time your designing your t-shirts graphics you may want to keep in mind that adding foil or glitter to your artwork might really make it pop.  The foil printing method is a two step process.  The area of the design that the foil will adhere to is printed just like any other screen print except we use a foil adhesive as opposed to a pigmented ink.  The ink is then sent through the dryer to be cured.  The shirt is then placed on the heat press a piece of foil that will cover the whole design is then cut and placed on top.  The foil is heat pressed for 10-20 seconds on the heat press and then allowed to cool for another 20-30 seconds.  Once cool the foil is removed from the shirt leaving it only in the correct areas of the design.  Foil imprints can be a very powerful marketing addition to a clothing line or a way to boost profits with a college or school fundraiser.  Get a custom t-shirt quote right here. Just let us know you want them done with foil.

Alstyle Apparel has just released two new v-neck styles for the 2010 calender year.  Recently it’s been hard to find a cheaper alternative to American Apparel’s v-neck and with the V’s increase in popularity this past year it’s a refreshing welcome.  The style 5300 is the Adult fine jersey v-neck.  It’s 4.3 oz. 100% combed ring spun cotton and is light weight and slim fit.  The 550 is the Juniors Sheer Jersey v-neck and is also 4.3 oz. 100% ring spun cotton super soft with  a slight stretch for a perfect fit.  The current colors available in the adult tee are athletic heather, black, white, charcoal, charcoal heather, purple, silver and turquoise.  The available colors for the juniors tee are athletic heather, black, charcoal heather, dark chocolate, hot pink, purple, turquoise and white.  These tees are great for custom screen printing or embroidery and start at as low as $4.59 ea. for a quantity of 72.  Find out more at www.InnoThreadGraphics.com or www.Alstyle.com.

Being put in charge of ordering custom screen printed t-shirts for the business or organization can seem like a daunting task.  And truly, it can, depending on who you decide to work with.  The very first step is the artwork.  Decide whether your business or group will be supplying the artwork or if you’ll be having a design firm or screen printing company producing it.  If you supply your own artwork it is extremely important that it be camera ready artwork.  The term camera ready means that it is ready for print and nothing else needs to be done to it.  It’s probably been designed in a vector program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.  Vector art can be re-sized to any size and not lose any resolution.  Quality starts with the artwork and it’s very important to have nice crisp lines.  Secondly, if you decide to contract the artwork out it may be important to look for a screen printer, who you’ll be working with anyway for the shirts, that does graphic design work.  Many times since you’ll be ordering a bunch of t-shirts you’ll get a much better price on the artwork as opposed to a graphic design firm.  On the flip side, a well experienced graphic design firm may be producing better work.

Now that our artwork is ready to go it’s time to find the best screen printer.  We’ll start with price.  This can get to be a bit tricky.  One shop may quote you $5 per shirt for 50 shirts, but they may also have a $30 screen setup and $10 film charge therefore the shirts are really $6.20 ea.  Where as another shop may be quoting you an all inclusive price of $5.99 ea.  Be very careful and always do the math (including shipping and tax) to find out what your real unit price is.  This also brings up the question on whether to shop locally or online.  There are a lot of online screen printing shops that offer free shipping and by ordering out of state you’ll also save on sales tax.  For rush orders it’s always nice to have a neighborhood shop.  The other tricky part with price is the quality.  How do I know that screen printer A is quoting me for the same thing as screen printer B?  Generally there are two types of t-shirts: the 6.1 oz. cotton tee and the 5.5 oz. cotton tee.  Most manufactures will call the 5.5 oz. t-shirt a heavyweight and 6.1 oz. t-shirt Ultra heavyweight.  Here’s the truth; the 6.1 oz. is heavyweight and the normal weight of most t-shirts you would see in a store the 5.5 oz. is lightweight.  Some shops will always quote the cheapest shirt and some will always quote the 6.1 oz. tees, so make sure you make it known which type you’d like.

Quality ranges dramatically from shop to shop.  The best way to find out is to get a referral from a friend or relative.  Most companies are using the same brands of t-shirts and blanks, so it’s not really the quality of the actual shirt to worry about.  A good shop will have great attention to detail, pride itself in good artwork and use high quality equipment and retensionable screens.  A good rule of thumb is to check out their website for creativity, quality and samples.  A screen printer should be artistic and creative; therefore their website should represent that.

Service is extremely important.  How fast do you get a quote back from the printer?  Probably one of the most important signs to whether you’ll receive good service or not.  Service is very important in this business since 90% of all orders have a deadline.  When working with deadlines it’s very important to have good communication between customer and printer.  Also, look at the turn around times that each company has before they charge you a rush fee.  Most companies have a standard turn around time of 7-10 business days.  If you need it sooner then they’ll start charging rush fees between 10%-50%, so don’t forget to calculate that into the original price.  If you find companies with shorter turn times like 3-5 business days consider if that is worth money to you.  Another important service question is what is your guarantee?  It’s important you find a printer that is willing to stand behind their work.  If you get your shirts delivered after the event date do you still have to pay for them?  What if there is a misspelled word? Do I still have to pay?  These are good things to get squared away before placing a big order.

Good Luck!

September 01, 2009
By Dan and Kevin Corcoran

Editor’s note: In the following pages, the authors take you step-by-step through the process of adding foil to your T-shirt artwork. First, they detail how to incorporate foil into the workflow of an automatic press. The process differs significantly for printers using a manual press, so the authors also detail how to apply foil when printing with a manual screen printing press.

For a comprehensive overview of using foil — the advantages, challenges, pricing, design philosophy, etc. — read the authors’ article “Foil Adds Sparkle and Margin,” beginning on p. 32.

Using Foil On An Automatic Press

STEP 1 — Whenever adding foil to a shirt design, print with water-based inks. Foil does not stick to water-based inks like it does to plastisol. If you want to use plastisol — or have to for any reason — it will work if you add foil release to the ink (per the manufacturer’s spec sheet).

STEP 2 — If you are using white water-based ink in your design, try to drive it down into the garment and use the highest mesh that you can get away with. White discharge has a higher pigment load than other water-based colors, so foil is more likely stick to it if it has a heavy hand.

STEP 3 — When you apply foil adhesive, use a thick stencil on a high-tension screen so you can shear a heavy deposit for the foil to stick on (two-thirds coat on a 110 mesh screen). You don’t want to drive most of the adhesive into the garment or the foil will turn out patchy-looking since it does not have enough surface to bind to.

STEP 4 — The adhesive print will just look like a wet patch on the garment. This may make registration difficult, so use a registration system if you have one, and make sure you have ample light at the press.

STEP 5 — Cure the inks in your dryer, place the garment on your heat press, and place a sheet of foil over the adhesive area.

STEP 6 — Set your heat press to 350°F with a dwell time of 15 seconds and medium-to-heavy pressure. When you lift up the hot platen, the foil will curl up at the edges. If you are not careful, the foil may “hot peel” on the edges and not adhere to the corners of your design. You can prevent this by placing parchment paper or a Teflon sheet on top of the foil. This will hold down the edges when you pop the heat press open.

STEP 7 — Rub the foil with a piece of cloth or a chalkboard eraser to help dissipate the heat quickly.

STEP 8 — Once cool, peel the foil away in one motion.

STEP 9 — Foil is a fragile decoration process compared to printing only with plastisol or water-based inks. To prevent the foil from flaking off after washing, run the finished shirts through the dryer a second time for a final cure. This will tarnish the foil, but will increase its durability. It’s better to present a finished garment with foil that is slightly less shiny than to give your customer a shirt with a foil a accent that falls off after the first wash.

Manual Press Foil Technique

STEP 1 — Essentially, you have to apply the ink to the back of foil and then heat-apply it like a transfer to your garment. To start, place a cut sheet of foil, shiny side down, on a lightly tacked platen.

STEP 2 — Burn your screen with the film reversed horizontally so that the transfer reads right when applied to the garment.

STEP 3 — Use a very healthy bead of foil adhesive, clear plastisol or plastisol tinted close to the color of your foil (to hide any imperfections). Use a slow, angled stroke to put down a good amount of ink/ adhesive, but avoid smearing, since you are printing on a very smooth, non-porous surface.

STEP 4 — Gel cure your transfer either under a flash unit or through a conveyor dryer with the temperature turned down. You do not want to fully cure the transfer since you want to re-melt the adhesive when you apply it to the garment.

STEP 5 — Lay the transfers out to cool on a clean surface. Do not stack until they have fully cooled, otherwise they will stick to each other.

STEP 6 — If you ganged up multiple transfers on a single sheet of foil, then trim the individual transfers. We weigh them down with small pieces of wood, otherwise they will curl up, making them hard to handle.

STEP 7 — Heat press onto the garment at 350°F with a dwell time of 15 seconds and medium-to-heavy pressure. Let the garment and transfer fully cool, then peel the foil off in one motion.

STEP 8 — Voila! You now have a perfect foil print.

Article provided by Impressions Magazine.

Well I just finished up the Porky’s Pizza t-shirt design. It incorporates a classic southern California feel with some classic cars and palm trees. The t-shirts will be on display at each of the stores for customers to purchase.  I’ll put up  a pic once the shirts have been printed.

Porkys Pizza design created by InnoThread Graphics

www.Porkysonline.com