How to Design a TShirt

This will explain the different ways to design a tshirt and which one would be best for your project.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• The quantity of shirts you want
• The artwork or design you want to use on the shirt

1. If you want only a few shirts then heat transfers are the best way to go. You can buy packets of heat transfer sheets at office supply stores and at arts & crafts shops. You can apply them with your iron, but a commercial heat press works much better. There is no cost difference for full color printing.
   
   You can also order professional quality heat transfers if you can wait a week or so before you need the shirts.

2. Screen printed shirts are great for higher quantities of shirts. This is how most commercially marketed shirts are made. This process requires that screens be made from artwork and each addtional color adds to the cost of the shirt.

3. Direct to Garment, or DTG, is also heat applied but the transfer is made by a commercial printer that is very high quality and can produce very clear, multi-color images. This requires special equipment but it's a great option for colorful images and small quantities.

4. Sublimation is also a heat transfer process but one that requires the garment to be be made of polyester. Polyester 100% is recommended but we have successfully used blended shirts for tshirt desgins that didn't require a precise final image.

5. Heat pressed vinyls can also be very effective for some designs. The computer generate image is cut into a sheet of vinyl and then the excess is removed, or weeded, from the backing of the vinyl to leave the design. This is then applied to the tshirt with a heat press.

6. All over designs stretch across an entire garment. It will pass over seams and onto neckbands, etc. This is a very popular print format for trendier garments. This type of design requires special equipment and much larger minimums for production.

7. Multi media designs are shirts that include vinyls, rhinestones, etc. Ed Hardy tshirts are an example of this type of design. You can not apply heat to a screen printed image because it will damage the ink impression on the shirt. Therefore, multi media designs are achieved through mixing several of these heat friendly methods.

Tips & Warnings

• Good designs dont have to be complicated or expensive. Proportion and placement on the tshirt are equally as important as the design.
• Always test the product and design format you plan to use before making a huge financial committment.

[jcoolcash11]

on 6/29/2009 thank you for the multiple ways to design a t shirt... RRCR5*

[musicdeb]

on 6/27/2009 great informative article on designing t-shirts
5*