Knowledge Base: How-to make a great t-shirt (Part 2)
Welcome to Part 2 of our 'How to make a great t-shirt' guide.
This section covers:
How do I do horizontal/landscape oriented images?
Where can I position my design on the shirt?
How do I check where my design is positioned?
What are vector graphics and raster graphics?
Can I use gradients and halftones in my design?
How will my design print?
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How do I do horizontal/landscape oriented images?
If you want to use a landscape image in your design, you need to place the image on the existing template. Please do not change the document setup from portrait to landscape as your file will not upload. The rectangular shape of the template indicates the fabric area on which we can print so any design needs to be placed within that area.
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Where can I position my design on the shirt?
Chris Wahl has produced this guide to give you an idea of where your design will sit on the shirt. The print area does not change, while the tee around it does.
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How do I check where my design is positioned?
Upload your tee and tick the ‘hide your work’ option and check you’re happy with placement before posting. You can also take a look at the tee colours to decide which suits before choosing a default colour. Your work will show up in activity monitors as it was first uploaded (including your first choice for default tee colour) so it’s worth tweaking the design until you’re happy.
If you upload a hidden tee then go to the clothing tab under mybubble, you’ll see the tiny pic that looks a bit like this:
Right click and copy the link location (properties > location) and grab the url with .jpg on the end. It’ll look something like this:
http;//images-2.redbubble.net/img/clothing/bodycolor:white/cropped/size:xsmall/style:womens/view:main/1763422-4-murder.jpg
If you paste that into another browser window and change xsmall to large in the url, you’ll get a nice big preview showing the detail. You can check you colours by changing that part of the url too – i.e. replacing black with white etc in the url.
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What are vector graphics and raster graphics?
Vector graphics are made up of paths which are defined by a start and end point, along with other points, curves, and angles along the way. A path can be a line, a square, a triangle, or a curvy shape. These paths can be used to create simple drawings or complex diagrams.
Pictures found on the Web and photos you import from your digital camera are raster graphics. They are made up of grid of pixels, also known as a bitmap.
Because vector-based images are not made up of a specific number of dots or pixels they can be scaled to a larger or smaller size and will not lose any image quality. If you enlarge a raster graphic, it will look pixelated but if you enlarge a vector graphic, the image will stay smooth and clean no matter how big you make it.
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Using Gradients and Halftones
The printer we use sprays down a number of layers of ink on the t-shirt. On dark shirts, the printer puts down an area of white first which sits underneath the coloured layers. If there are very fine details in your shirt design, the printer is effectively trying to lay down colour in exactly the same spot as the last layer so when using gradients and halftones in your design it's worth keeping the following in mind:
Black fading to nothing = ok
White fading to nothing = tricky
Colour fading to nothing = tricky
Colour fading to another colour = ok
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How your artwork will print
We have a Direct to Garment Digital Printer which is like an enormous inkjet in principle but unlike most other inkjets, it has white ink. Prints are divided into lights and darks. For light coloured t-shirts it prints straight onto the shirt, for darks it lays down a white base first and then prints on top of that.
This printer is far superior at handling gradients and
photographic-esque images than screen printing, and while it does a
very impressive job of rendering blocks colours, it is best to
avoid very large expanses of single colour area, particularly if
those areas are white.
Some quick important rules to follow and remember:
Gradients from a colour fading out to nothing on dark tees are
VERY hard to render.
Very fine type using white ink on dark tees can also be tricky.
Very large block areas of a single colour should be
avoided.