t-shirt printing blog

21 May

Screen Printed Tote Bags for TOPSHOP

Claudia Doms is a graphic designer from Germany who is currently living and working in London. She’s recently done a bit of work for Topshop, including coming up with these screen printed canvas tote bags. They were created in time for fashion week, promoting NEWGEN winner Mary Katrantzou and other up and coming fashion designers.

screen printed tote bags

In 1993 the British Fashion Council created New Generation (NEWGEN), one of the world’s most internationally recognised talent identification schemes. NEWGEN continues to showcase and promote new designer businesses and since 2001 the scheme has been sponsored by Topshop.

screen printed tote bags

Claudia has captured these bags really nicely – utilising everyday back drops for some, others are livened up by printed fabric swatches from the designers current collections.

These tote bags make a great canvas for almost any type of design or logo. Check out our range here. For more info on tshirt printing uk, get in touch!

 

17 May

Sevenly’s T-shirt Designs and Their Mission for World Change.

One tee. One week. One cause.

It’s such a simple concept and it’s doing a lot of good. California based Sevenly make lifestyle products that help fund charity projects in 7 areas of need across the globe. They sell each product for 7 days and give $7 of every product sold directly to that week’s charity. Their ultimate goal is to help people, fund worthy causes, and offer the magic kick some charities need to keep changing the world.

Their total donated to charities since June 2011 is over $450,000 USD. Pretty impressive stuff. Just as impressive, is their merchandise – namely their “Cause Tees”…

screen printed t-shirt designs screen printed t-shirt designs

If you’re a charity and would like some printed T-shirts or hoodies, then come chat to us!

email: sales@iconprinting.com

phone: 0207 183 8431

16 May

Inspiration – Printed Totes by Alphabet Bags.

amazing screen printed tote bags by Alphabet bags

1.  2.  3.  4.  5.  6.  7.  8.

Aren’t these printed totes by Alphabet Bags great?* Simple, bold graphics printed onto canvas tote bags make fantastic promotional hand-outs or gifts.

This kind of product also makes a great online seller for web based boutiques. Get in touch to find out how little it costs to print onto these bags. We can screen print, use DTG printing or transfer print, we have something for every budget.

Plus it’s free UK delivery on all orders over £100! Get in touch for more direct to garment printing info.

email: sales@iconprinting.com or phone: 0207 183 8431

* PLEASE NOTE: These tote bags by Alphabet Bags are NOT purchased from, or printed by Icon Printing.

16 May

5 Tips on Designing Artwork for Screen Printing…

Here are a few important pointers on what not to do when creating your artwork. By following these guidelines it will maximise the quality of your screen printed garment.

1. Web Images

Using images from the web can be handy, but note that most of the time these images are very small and set to only 72 dpi (very low image quality). Web designers use the lowest resolution and size possible so that their pages load fast while keeping the images looking good. Due to this, the image downloaded is designed to look good at the relatively small size it appears on screen and not printed out here in the real world. When it comes to screen printing, these forms of photo images should be avoided altogether – but vector based images are absolutely fine.

screen print 1

As shown above, many internet images are very pixelated and blurred.

2. Details

Try to avoid very small negative spaces as they can fill in or “bleed”. Ink is a fluid and therefore spreads a little bit by nature. So a very small negative space (such as the words “Screen Printing” – shown in the image below) can be filled in by the ink that surrounds it pretty easily. However, there is no hard and fast rule for avoiding bleed on small type/detailing, so every piece of artwork will be evaluated on a case by case basis. However, a good general guideline is to use fonts at or above 12 points and lines or outlines stroke size larger than 0.3 pt.

screen print 2

The fine or “light” version of this typeface is not a good choice, the hairline box detail also wouldn’t print.

3. Illustrator Effects

Illustrator has some cool effect options, but you’ve got to be careful when using them – especially when creating artwork for screen printing. Try to avoid drop shadow or gradient effects. These often look good (at first glance) and add dimension, but they complicate your file by mixing image types and this type of effect doesn’t translate to the screen successfully. If you do want a slight shaded area effect or gradient within your design or logo, it will need to be made up of a series of very small dots (when viewed close-up) that from a distance, create the look of a gradient or difference in tone. It is more time consuming, but the outcome is a much better print.

screen print 3

4. Transparencies

In Illustrator, when two shapes overlap and the one on top has opacity set lower than 100%, the color of the shape below it will affect its color. For example (see below), when the circle on the bottom is red and the one on top is blue with 50% opacity, the overlapping portion is violet. But when it comes down to printing, it almost never works out like that due to unpredictable ink transparencies and intermingling pigments.  If you’ve got a red + blue = violet type scenario, use a spot color violet instead of transparencies.

screen print 4

5. Problem Colours

Inks have varying degrees of transparency. A few color ranges are very transparent and do not look good when printed on a particular colour under base – whether that’s another ink layer or your actual garment colour. This can leave areas looking splotchy, washed out and generally poor. Darker blues tend to be one of these and, unless you’re printing on to white garments, avoid using them. Another one to look out for, is bright fluorescent inks, they too are very transparent and tend to lighten up and lose brightness when printed on an under base.

If you have any questions about your artwork, we are here to help! Drop us an email or just give us a ring -

sales@iconprinting.com or on 0207 183 8431

 

14 May

Behind the Clothing Brand – American Apparel.

One of our most popular brands we stock at Icon Printing, is the well known clothing manufacturer – American Apparel. This LA based label excels in producing fantastic basic pieces that are great fitting and of excellent quality – resulting in ideal clothing for printing. Due to their garments pure cotton or cotton/poly content, we find they last the best both in terms of printing and wear.

American Apparel t-shirts

Now for a little background information – as how they go about things is pretty interesting. They are a vertically integrated company – which means not only are they a clothing manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer, but they also perform their own design, advertising, and (award-winning) marketing. They provide more than 10,000 jobs worldwide and produce one million garments each week at their sweat-shop free factory in Downtown Los Angeles.

Their site is well worth a look around, as throughout, there is a wonderful sense of personality and alternative thinking. Below is a screen shot of one of the best sections of their website…where they urge you to ‘Explore Our Factory’.

American Apparel HQ

By hovering your cursor over the black and white image of their massive factory building, various departments appear highlighted – each one presenting it’s own related short video clip. Here’s where it gets cool, the video snippets are not exactly what you think they’re going to be. For example, their “Shoemakers” section video clip is on their “favourite pairs” – but not favourite pairs of shoes, but people within the company. You then get to meet couples who have met since working at American Apparel, also best friends and twin sisters…it’s really rather nice. And creative department video is brought to you by the studio dog, obviously much more insightful than a human being…and way more fun!

American Apparel behind the scenes

Check out our catalogue to see what American Apparel products we carry, or just get in touch with any t-shirt printing London inquires…

sales@iconprinting.com or on 0207 183 8431

 

08 May

What is Earth Positive Apparel all about?

Here at Icon Printing, we’ve got a vast range of garments we’re able to print on to – whatever your budget or requirements. We also have a fantastic selection of organic products, as more and more people these days are becoming aware of the effects of irresponsible cotton farming. The video below is a quick insight into why choosing organic and fair trade makes such a difference…

COTTON: Have You Picked Yours Carefully?

We carry a great organic brand called EarthPositive. They’re so good, they’re award winning and each garment is made from certified organic Indian cotton and are soft, cool and perfect fitting.

Earth Positive garments
EarthPositive Apparel is made to demonstrate the highest possible environmental, social and ethical standards in one of the worlds most environmentally damaging industries, and to provide the promotional wear industry with a familiar product with which to promote awareness and take action on climate change. Now, the humble T-shirt, the most basic canvas for communicating a brand name, identity, or political slogan, has become the environmental product. EarthPositive Apparel is made in manufacturing facilities in India powered by wind turbines, from low-impact organic cotton, resulting in 100% organic products.
Under the organic standard, farmers and agricultural workers are protected by stringent social criteria, total traceability across the entire supply chain, and also by the ban on the use of poisonous chemicals that can severely damage the health of farmers and their families.
Looking for something in particular? Here are some links to our most popular organic products…
For more information on our organic garments or any other queries on custom t-shirt printing, let us know! Email us at: sales@iconprinting.com or give us a ring on 0207 183 8431.
04 May

How to save your artwork as a transparent PNG.

This is a quick tutorial on how to save your artwork ready for DTG (direct to garment) printing.

Here are a few pointers to remember:

  1. When creating a .PNG file to be DTG printed, make sure your artworks colour mode is set to RGB – otherwise it will not save as a .PNG file.
  2. The best file type to create a print from is either an Illustrator .ai or .eps file (a vector file) or a high resolution .jpg file – that is at least 300 dpi and saved at 100% of the intended print size.
  3. For more information on DTG printing in general, take a look here.

So, this is how you save a 300 dpi image in Photoshop as a transparent PNG for DTG printing.

To make things a little easier, we’ve made you a lovely PNG template – click here to download and follow the instructions.

Now create your artwork. If you’re using a logo you’ve made, a photo you’ve taken or even an illustration you’ve created, make sure it’s not sitting on a white background (unless you want it to), as this will print. For example…

How to save a PNG file

Once you’ve created your artwork, it’s time to save it. You can maintain the transparency on the file, as we’re able to print full alpha, but remember any transparent areas will show the colour of whatever shirt you chose to print onto.

Having used our downloadable template, your file will already come up as a .png so just rename it and hit save. Don’t worry about the layers warning that may come up, your file will still save fine. A small PNG options window will then pop up, just tick the NONE option and you’re done.

How to save a PNG file

Any questions on direct to garment printing? Give us a ring!

0207 183 8431