#silkwormink

Plastisol Ink: Versatile ink made of liquid plastic which becomes solid when heated. Plastisol inks are what we use for most of the shirts we print because they are easy to work with and provide bright, solid colors. Plastisol inks should not be ironed as it may melt and smear the print.

Water Based Ink: Inks which mix pigments with water. Water based inks are harder to work with because they are more transparent and all of the water must evaporate before the print is set. Their main advantage is that they absorb into the garment better rather than sitting on top of it like plastisol inks do giving the print a softer hand/feel.

Fashion Base: An additive for plastisol inks which gives the print a softer hand.

Discharge Ink: A water based formula which removes pigment from the garment. Has a very soft hand but is not reliable for exact color matching.

All Purpose Ink (AP): Used for 100% Cotton and 50/50 garments.  They create a low to medium opacity and work well on light colors and on a white base.  When printing on dark shirts with the ink color off a base, the shirt will bleed through the ink, causing a noticeable ink color shift.

High Opacity (HO):  Used for 100% Cotton and 50/50 garments.  They create a good opacity and can work on 100% Cotton without a base with a slight color shift.

Colormax (CM): Colormax is another kind of high opacity ink

Fluorescent (FLO): Bright translucent ink colors which work will on light garments.  This ink needs a base plate for most colors.

Low Bleed LB: Designed to help with bleed resistance on 50/50 T-shirts.

What is one of the most often overlooked elements when thinking about a design for a shirt? Location, location, location! Here are a few examples of less common print locations that can help set your shirt apart from the more conventional design placements that we see every day.

Shoulder Prints

Shoulder prints make a great alternative to the traditional back collar imprint. By putting the print on the shoulder you avoid having it covered up by long hair and having the design off center gives it a great dynamic feel. We like to use right shoulder prints for event shirts like for 5k/walk/runs because it means that every participant will see the logo on the shoulder of the person in front of them.

Side Prints

Can’t decide between putting your design on the front and putting it on the back? Try something in between and put your design on the side of the shirt. Side prints are fun because they are a bit mysterious. When the design wraps around your body it takes on a new dimensionality not found with a flat back print. Because side prints cross over the seams of the shirt there can be minor imperfections so text and other fine details should not be placed there. Side prints are a great choice for chic designs or any time you want to make a fashion statement.

Vertical Prints

Your logo is important and in order to make it look great on your shirt or promotional product we ask that you provide us with the best possible digital file to work from. In this post I’ll outline some steps you can take to make sure that the logo you provide to us is correct.

Pick the right version of your logo

 First, make sure that the logo you’re going to send is the right version for how it will be used. Often companies will use have different versions of their logo depending on how it will be used. These differences can be whether it is the logo alone or with a tag line, slogan or other information included, whether it is the full color version, spot color only, single color or reversed out for printing light on dark or if there is an alternate version designed for use at small sizes. Some companies document this information in their branding or logo usage guidelines. If spot colors are used please also note the Pantone PMS number of any colors used. If you aren’t sure which version will work best we will be happy to help you make the best choice for the garment or item that you’ve selected.

Make sure the file is vector

This is perhaps the most important part. In order to ensure the highest quality print we need your logo in vector format. This means that the images and type in the logo are made up of shapes and lines that can be scaled without degrading as opposed to a raster image which is made up of pixels and will look blocky if enlarged too much. The simplest way to check this is to open your logo and zoom in as much as you can—if the image becomes pixelated it is raster, if you see smooth curves and shapes it is vector. Some common vector formats are .ai .eps and .pdf but please check your files beyond looking at the file extension because these formats can also contain raster images in some cases. Some common raster formats are.jpg .tif .png .gif and .psd. If your only available copy of your logo is in a raster format we can still work with it but we may need to recreate it to be more print friendly.

Converting type to outlines

  To ensure that all the text in your logo is reproduced exactly all text should be converted to outlines before sending the file to use. Converting to outlines means that the text is changed from an editable string of type in your chosen font to a collection of vector shapes. Because this removes your ability to edit the text make sure that you make a copy of your original file or ‘save as’ so that you can edit the original text later if needed. In Adobe Illustrator type can be outlined by selecting it and choosing “Create Outlines” from the “Type” menu. In other programs this option may be called “Expand”, “Expand Type” or “Outline Type”.

  Send it in