ARTWORK GUIDELINES
A vector image can be enlarged or reduced to any size without losing quality on lines and edges as the design is created with points, paths and curves. These can be saved in .svg .pdf .ai for example.
A bitmap image needs to be created at the actual print size or near it, and at 300dpi (dots per inch) to retain quality. Also, saving the artwork in a .png or .tiff will avoid loss of quality.
Creating your artwork with a paint program.
When creating a new document in a paint program, it's best to measure across a tee shirt or yourself and decide how wide or tall you want the print to be. You can choose mm, inches or cm in all paint programs so choose whatever you work best with.
In the image below, I have created a new document in Krita (This will be very similar in photoshop or other programs) I selected mm with the drop down arrows and entered 280mm x 370mm this is our standard maximum print area for a chest or back print, so it's quite large. I've also entered 300 in the resolution box (which refers to dots per inch or pixels per inch)
Notice at the bottom of the screen, it tells us that the document we create will be 3307 pixels by 4370 pixels. Well that's great, for a full tee shirt front you need enough pixels to represent your image at that size. At this resolution you can draw with a small fine brush and text you add won't have any jagged edges.
It's much easier to take a large image and reduce it in size for a pocket or sleeve print than to take a small low resolution image and scale it up to a chest print. Of course, if you need a smaller print, for a pocket for example, you can start with 3 inch x 3 inch at 300 ppi (dpi) which will give you a resolution of 900 x 900 pixels.
How large can the artwork be?
Our standard maximum print area for screen printing is 280mm x 370mm for a chest or back print. We also print sleeves, pockets, sides, tags and legs.
It is best to create a layer and fill it with a base colour (the colour of your chosen tee shirt for example) and then create a new transparent layer above it to create your design on.
Creating your artwork with a vector program.
Inkscape and illustrator are both vector drawing programs. Artwork created in these programs create lines, points and curves mathematically and will store an image as a description, eg draw a curve from point A to B.
In this way, the artwork can be scaled as large as you like and the lines and curves will always be perfect.
It is important though when using fonts to convert them into curves when finalizing your image to print, as shown above. In inkscape, select the font then go to path and select object to path. This will ensure that fonts you have on your computer can also be read on my computer.
In the image above you can now see that the font has been converted to points and lines.
Choosing your colours.
Choosing your colours from a Pantone book is the standard way to ensure that the colours in your design don't vary from printer to printer as they will all carry a book for reference.
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Dont worry though, if you just have some cool artwork and have no idea what the colours are, we will match to what we think is the closest Pantone colour and record it for future orders.
We of course don't expect everyone to own a Pantone book, but if you've had your logo designed by someone else and a particular PMS (Pantone matching system) color was used, we can match to the same colour in print.
Below is a link to an on screen Pantone book. Please be aware that colours shown on a computer screen will always appear more vibrant than when they are printed.