T-shirt printing – 3 things to keep foremost in mind. These three inexpensive tips are easy to follow, simple to use and will give you lots of satisfaction when you wear your personalized shirts soon.
Lets begin with the end in mind. Instead of rushing off in a hurry and ordering shirts online to be printed I suggest starting with the end in mind.
Why do you want to print a shirt? Is it for work or is it for a birthday party? Maybe it’s for a fun run soon or just as a gift for someone? Could it be as a memory of a trip recently taken?
Each of these events above may result in picking a different garment for the wearer to keep in mind. Maybe the climate around you may dictate what you wear. It is important to keep this in mind while deciding to print designs on shirts. A hoodie as a gift in summer may not be as acceptable as a crew neck T-shirt. So lets begin!
Tip 1: Why Do You Want To Print Your Own Shirt?
This is an important question because it will lead us to the purpose of the shirt, the fabric it is made off and whether it’s a Jersey or Hoodie for winter wear or a Sleeveless T-shirt or Scoop Neck shirt for a hot summer event.
Let me give you three examples here to help you understand how this planning stage is very important before you run off buying shirts randomly online.
Example One! Lets imagine you are planning a bucks night out one Saturday soon with the boys. It’s all about the groom as its his big day out with the guys. The bunch of friends decide that the theme will be around the groom’s football team.
The decision is that everyone will wear a T-shirt custom printed with characters of the footy idols with a twist. Each footy player will be done up as a cartoon character instead of using the players’ images. This could be a great party with even greater shirts. Get a graphic designer to come up with some sketches of characters for the whole party.
Example Two! You have an outdoor event happening around fitness. Your fitness club needs shirts with logos printed on the front and back as well as the sleeves. The club wants a polyester shirt and needs the shirts to be cost-effective. Now because the shirts are not cotton I suggest thinking about screen printing the logos and designs onto the T-shirts instead of digitally printing the images on. To get the best prices most printers suggest that a minimum of 20 shirts must be printed at a time. So once you got your shirts sorted out all you need then is to go onto tip #2 to get quality shirts printed.
Example Three! Imagine you are planning a birthday party for a 6-year-old girl. There are going to be 30 kids coming along and you want shirts to match the party theme. You can either go for a T-shirt or a sweatshirt to suit the children. Ordering in bulk will be cost-effective for you as most printing companies offer discounts for large bulk orders. Once you know what the purpose is for its time to move on to tip #2 below.
Once the type of shirt is known now its time to decide what you like printed on tip. We have a choice of images, designs or TEXT. Here we shall focus on the image or photo we will print on the clothing. This leads us to Tip #2.
Tip 2: What Images Sizes Are Best For Printing?
I find that most people who approach me to get their T-shirts printed do not have the proper photo size to begin with. What most people do is they grab free images off Google or Facebook. Though these graphics may look OK on a small screen they seldom are the right size to print on a much large surface such as a shirt or jumper.
The images from the internet are reduced in size and are around 96 dpi resolution or around 5 cm by 5 cm in dimensions. These images will not be big enough to even look good on the breast pocket of your polo business shirts.
If you were to try stretching the image across the back or front of the Tee you will get a pixelated image printed due to the poor quality of the image you used.
The solution is going for big file size images. The recommended resolution for good images is a minimum of 300 dpi or about 30 cm by 30 cm in dimensions. Three times what is mentioned above. These are large files and if stretched will easily produce great quality printed shirts when you print the graphics onto the garments. t shirt personnalisé