Tshirt Printing Manchester - T-Shirt Design - Choosing Between Screen and Digital Printing

Different techniques can be used to print your t-shirt design onto your T-shirt, and unsurprisingly, they produce different results. In this article, we examine screen printing and digital t-shirt printing, and the pros and cons of each one, to help you choose the best way to create your dream t-shirt.

Screen printing for t-shirts 
If you had an industrious art teacher at school, you may have tried a simple version of screen printing in which a template for each colour of your design creates the spaces where the ink can be pressed onto the fabric. The same principle applies in professional t-shirt screen printing, although there is more automation of the actual printing once the set-up has been completed.

Digital printing 
This is sometimes called "direct to garment digital printing" or simply DTG. This technique involves the application of textile water-based inks to the t-shirt using a specialised digital printer. The design is usually fixed onto the garment with a heat press.

Choosing the best t-shirt printing technique 
When considering which technique to choose for a t-shirt print run, many people ask which provides the best quality finish. In fact, the best technique depends on the t-shirt design you want to print, as some are better suited to each technique. It also depends on the colours you are printing and the colour of the base garment too.

The best T-shirt designs for screen printing 
Bold designs with thick lines and few colours are best suited to screen printing, producing very high quality results. If you are using a digital image with fine colour blending or black and white shading in your t-shirt design, screen printing will simply not be able to reproduce the image well.

Of course, other factors will influence the price of your t-shirt run, such as the number being produced, especially as screen printing does involve more setting up before printing can begin. The number of colours in the design also affects the price as a different screen is required for each colour.

If your T-shirt design is relatively simple, screen printing may well be the best option as it produces a very high quality finish. Many in the t-shirt printing industry maintain that the best vibrancy of colour can only be produced by screen printing. The durability of screen printed t-shirts following multiple wears and washes is also considered to be the best, but of course, the quality of inks used and the base garment will also be a factor.

The best T-shirt designs for digital printing 
Advances in printing technology have improved the finish of digitally printed t-shirts immensely over recent years. If you tried it a few years ago and were disappointed by seeing dots in your design, don't let it discourage you now. Modern digital t-shirt printing machines produce better finishes now, with better durability than ever before.

If you are using a photograph or complex, multi-coloured image in your t-shirt design, digital printing is the way to go as it can reproduce photorealistic designs. In addition, it's the cheaper option if you only need a small number of t-shirts produced as the set-up costs are lower.

One important factor to consider with digital printing is the colour of the base garment, as generally that colour is the most prominent in the design, and as a result, best effects are achieved using white t-shirts when printing a multi-coloured design. Only the very best DTG t-shirt printers may be able to get excellent results with black or dark coloured t-shirts. Printing white ink can still be problematic, so avoiding using DTG t-shirt printing for designs that contain substantial white areas, especially on dark base garments, is a wise choice.

Summary 
With the advances in digital T-shirt printing over recent years, it's no longer simply a case of "screen printing produces the best results" - instead, start with the needs of your design and examine whether screen printing or DTG digital T-shirt printing can best reproduce it.

In short, if your design is simple and has few colours, generally screen printing is the method to opt for, but may be more expensive for a small print run. If your T-shirt design involves many colours and photorealistic images, then digital printing should be your first choice. Of course, the best t-shirt printing companies will be happy to give you advice on what is best for your needs.

Steve Beynon has over twenty years of experience in the garment printing and embroidery industry, creating Shirtlab after extensive research into customised clothing and apparel websites currently available in the UK. Shirtlab provides a state of the art online promotional garment design service, providing easy to use design tools that create outstanding personalised T-shirt designs with minimal effort.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Beynon

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Tshirt Printing Manchester - Create Successful Marketing Campaign Through T-Shirt Printing

You can produce a definite and individual style and sport the custom t-shirt printing to the world with self-esteem. You can achieve the best of whatever text that you need in the choicest of colors and designs with varying pictures to make a very strong impression on clientele. It is very much possible when you contact a high quality online printing company and discuss the concept in details. First, you get in touch with such a talented online printing house and interact with the graphic designer about the concept that you have in mind. The expert graphic designer comes out with several designs for you to select the best one. You are free to make the selection and complete the first and most vital step of producing the wonderful t-shirt printing that speaks of your product to the whole world.

Alternatively, you can choose from various designs that are available with the printing company. They have in their stock a wide range of designs in brilliant colors and varieties of slogans or texts or images from which you make the selection as well. You have to log onto the site and select a design, which you think suitable and pass the order for the particular material. If you want a specific design in a specific color, printing companies are able to satisfy the demand easily. You get a rate quote from them when you mention the required quantity of t-shirts. You get huge discounts on the purchases if you order for a good quantity of the t-shirt printing

If you need special colors for the advertisement of products of your company, you have to provide the image of the product, which is printed on the garments. The marketing campaign gets the right kind of support when you include custom t-shirt printing in the plan to motivate customers in a great manner. If you are in favor of the new concept of marketing the product in a special way with the help of t-shirt printing, you should get all such garments from reputed online printing companies and enjoy the piece of mind and get high quality products to make the marking drive successful.

Through this article, we try to provide valuable information about T-shirt Printing and its effectiveness. For printing and other business promotional products, you can visit Custom T-shirts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Birendra_Mohan_Bhattacharjee

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Tshirt Printing Manchester - Rastafari and Reggae Designs in T-Shirt Printing

T-shirt printing companies often feature symbolic prints on t-shirts. These symbols include political and social images that may have significance to a minority group or may represent a counterculture movement, such as the Rastafari Movement.

According to Wikipedia, most Rastas do not think of the movement as a "religion," but a "Way of Life." It is monotheistic, worshiping only one God, which they call Jah. However, this God is not a vague Almighty Being in the heavens, but incarnated as Haile Selassie I, the last Emperor of Ethiopia.

Rastafari has Afrocentric ideologies and teachings. Its members support the spiritual use of cannabis, or marijuana. It also has a tri-color flag-red, green and yellow-with a lion's silhouette printed at the center.

Bob Marley And Rastafari In T-Shirt Printing

The strong association of Rastafari with reggae is partly because of Bob Marley's stature and his membership in the movement. Bob Marley is one of the most popular Rastas in the world, and his popularity has helped spread the influence of the Rastafari Movement in the world.

Bob Marley's signature image-his wide smile and his dreadlocks-is one of the most popular designs in t-shirt printing. His face has been printed in different versions, either as a pencil sketch or as a photograph. The prints show Bob Marley in different poses, while singing onstage or with his head thrown back in carefree laughter.

Bob Marley heavily incorporated Rastafarian chants in his song. Aside from Marley, other reggae musicians also used music to spread the teachings of Rastafari. Musicians like Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer have integrated Rastafarian doctrine in their songs.

Red, Green And Gold In RastafariT-Shirt Printing

The Rastafari colors are green, red and gold, the same hues found in its flag. At the center of the flag the silhouette of a roaring lion stands proud while the horizontal stripes of the three colors are in the background.

Sometimes, the three colors serve as background to or were superimposed on top of Bob Marley's image. In a sketch of Marley's face, the same three colors were mixed with the dark lines. Other times, the lyrics of Bob Marley's songs accessorize the image.

Red signifies the blood of Black Jamaican martyrs, green represents the lushness of the Ethiopian or Jamaican countryside, and gold signifies the wealth of Africa. Sometimes, black is included as a reference to the Marcus Garvey movement.

Reggae and the Rasta movement are rich sources of artistic inspiration for t-shirt printing designers. The symbols from these movements touch the rebellious spirit of the angst-ridden youth of the seventies, and continue to nurture the same sentiments in today's generation. Custom printed t-shirts with these types of designs speak the messages that they want us to listen to.

Marie Claire Ponsaran is an experienced Internet researcher, independent blogger and freelance writer for various articles on t-shirts in UK.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marie_Claire_Ponsaran

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Tshirt Printing Manchester - Direct To Garment Is Superior To Screen Printing

Printing tshirts using Direct To Garment (DTG) printing, the process of printing to cotton based fabrics (i.e. tshirts) using a large format inkjet printer, is far superior to screen printing, the process of pressing inks into fabric through a stencil. It is more environmentally friendly, less time consuming and more cost effective for smaller runs.

DTG tshirt printing is more environmentally than screen printing. DTG uses water-based inks to printing directly onto clothing, this means that there are no excess inks used in the actual printing and the only waste that does occur is from the occasional print head cleaning - it should also be noted that head cleaning does not involve any external materials only ink.

Of course, major head cleaning can be avoided by regular maintenance of the printer, and thus one head clean a day - a matter of millilitres - is usually sufficient. Then as long as waste ink is disposed of correctly, printing tshirts using the DTG method should have almost no environmental impact. Screen printing however has excess inks from parts of the stencil not printed to the tshirt and when screens are cleaned these excess inks are then washed down the drain.

The process of screen printing involves creating a stencil and then pressing inks through said stencil onto fabric. The stencil can be created by hand or photo emulsion, and for each colour of a design a new screen is needed. DTG uses only software and a computer to send a design directly to a printer and this can take a matter of seconds with all colours being printed at once. (On darker fabrics there is a white layer printed first and then the remaining colours). DTG is far less time consuming with regard to setup, and this is particularly useful when printing small runs of tshirts.

Smaller (less than 50) runs of tshirts are far more cost effective with DTG printing than screen printing. Minimal setup with DTG printing means that tshirt runs as low as 1 can be produced for a matter of $5 - $10 in materials (including tshirt) and for a print on white can take as little as 2minutes to produce. Screen printers may claim that on larger runs they can produce a much more economical print however with multiple colours, and then drying time this seems unlikely.

Printing tshirts using Direct To Garment printing is far superior to screen printing. Whilst both methods produce an excellent quality, DTG is far more environmentally friendly, is less time consuming, and more cost effective for smaller runs. Whilst screen printing is a tried and tested method of printing onto tshirts it seems that DTG printing is the way of the future.

tshirt Printing Manchester

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1021174

Tshirt Printing Manchester - 8 Specialty Printing Techniques to Make Your T-Shirts Stand Out From The Crowd

If you want your t-shirt designs to be unique, to stand out from the crowd, try using some of the specialty printing effects outlined in this article. Specialty printing offers some genuine advantages. Besides simply looking awesome, special effects give your designs a point of difference from others and while they do cost more than standard screen printing, distinctive products often command higher sale prices.

Discharge ink

Discharge ink removes the existing dye from a t-shirt, leaving behind the natural colour of the fibre (generally some shade of beige). Colours can then be replaced in the fibres by adding inks to the discharge base.

Advantages: Using discharge ink on a t-shirt results in a solid, coloured print and a very soft hand (i.e. a soft 'feel' to the printed t-shirt). Discharge ink is especially valuable if you're printing bright colours on black t-shirts. The alternative technique for printing colours on a dark dye base requires an "undercoat" layer of white ink to ensure sufficient opacity of colour, resulting in a thick, heavy finish.

Disadvantages: Because it's impossible to know in advance how each shirt will react to discharge ink, colour matching can't be guaranteed and there may be some colour variation between prints throughout a run.

Photochromic ink

Photochromic, or UV-reactive inks, are almost transparent when viewed indoors but change to vivid colours in sunlight.

Advantages: Cool effects can be created with a print that effectively displays two different designs - one indoors, and another outdoors.

Disadvantages: Only a limited range of colours is available.

Glow in the dark ink

Glow in the dark inks do exactly what their name suggests - they distinguish themselves by glowing in the dark! In the light, these inks will appear semi-transparent.

Advantages: People can find you in the dark. (Just kidding. It's pretty cool, though.)

Disadvantages: The inks work best if they're printed on a white or pale coloured background, so a light coloured base layer is required on darker shirts.

Foil printing

Foil printing is a two-stage process which leaves a shiny metallic 'print' on the shirt. First, the garment is screenprinted, using a special adhesive rather than ink, and cured (dried) in the normal way. A sheet of foil is then heat-pressed onto the image created by the adhesive. When the press is lifted away, the foil sticks to the adhesive-printed areas and the excess is removed.

Advantages: 

Foil printing gives the best shiny metallic printing effect. Bling!

 

Disadvantages: Because it's a two stage process, foil printing may not work quite as well for fine, detailed designs, and it's more vulnerable to energetic washing than most other decoration styles.

Metallic inks

Metallic inks result in a shimmery, sparkly effect, rather like metallic car paint. Metallic screenprinting is cheaper than foil printing, but doesn't have the same shiny effect.

Glitter printing

Like foil printing and metallic inks, glitter inks can make your design sparkly and eye-catching. They're available in a variety of colours.

Puff inks

Puff inks are created by mixing a specially formulated base in with the ink. The base-ink mix expands ("puffs") as the print is cured through the heat tunnel, leaving a 3D texture. Puff inks are also available in a wide range of colours.

Flock

Flock printing is achieved by adding a special base to the ink, which gives the ink a furry, velvety texture as it cures through the heat tunnel.

All of these specialty printing techniques can be used to give your designs a little "extra" something, make them special, unique.

"Creativity is contagious. Pass it on." - Albert Einstein

Joel J Taylor is the owner and operator of PSI Screenprinting, a successful Australian web based Screen Printing company specialising in T-shirt Printing - http://www.psionline.com.au.

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Tshirt Printing Manchester - How to Use Different Types of Printing Methods on T-Shirts

There are many types of printing methods that can be effectively put into use for printing on T shirts. In olden days, printing was done on paper and walls with rubber or wooden plates carved to represent the characters and pictures needed. Today, we neither need to use the carving of wooden blocks, nor do we limit the walls and paper as areas for printing. Even smooth glass can be printed with the needed characters and pictures with special LASER technology. The latest trend at present is printing on T-shirts and this has been successful in finding buyers from all age groups. So how do we use the different types of printing techniques on T-shirts?

1. Painting logos and designs enjoys a good reputation of printing on T-shirts; such printing is said to be quite easy and it is worth the time that it takes to complete each T-shirt. Dye based paints are used to make the most creative and imaginative printing works on medium quality T-shirts. Very high quality T-shirts use this technique sparsely as the companies who make such T-shirts will have larger funds to go in for higher grade printing techniques.

2. Embossing a picture by using the 'dye process' is a system that is prevalent among industries who believe in traditional printing and among those companies whose production capacity is not very high. As they have all the time they need, they make designs and emboss them by using suitable dye colors on the T-shirts and by using the dyeing process itself.

3. Stitching the desired pictures and logos on T-shirts is the kind of printing which will never lose its popularity for any reason. People, who know to stitch, will make their own designs on the T-shirts they use and this type of printing has been done for centuries. Some very popular companies make use of this type of printing for their branded T-shirts and this seems to work magic for them by racking in the highest amount of sales percentage for their products.

4. LASER technology has been introduced in the printing business by some companies as this serves as a fine design maker and it has high precision in giving quality logos and designs. This LASER technology uses a high concentrated source of light spectrum to burn through the cloth materials of the T-shirts, to make beautiful designs by burning part of the material with high precision. This technique has its limitations though; you can use it only on materials that can tolerate heat up to a certain level. Materials which have a base of plastic and polyester will not be able to withstand even one percent of LASER energy. However this method has worked pretty well for other materials and is currently being used for T-shirt designing.

 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4081021

tshirt printing manchester

Tshirt Printing Manchester - Branding Your Company With Custom Printed T-Shirts

Any company that fails to build a brand name cannot expect to be competitive in the market today because branding is very important for survival in business. It is the brand that sells and builds an image out there in the business world. While branding always begins with certain ideologies and convictions and is a completely self-existent entity, your brand must communicate to the rest of the world for it to be known to exist. Building a brand can take a lot of time.

One of the best ways to build your company brand is to use custom printed t-shirts. Creating a custom printed t-shirt that you can use to brand your company is a wonderful way to engage people into your company and cause them to become loyal customers. These custom printed t-shirt wearers will also form a small army that will ensure that your brand name expands to new audiences and you gain optimum visibility.

If you want to reach people with custom printed t-shirts, you must do it in a way that you develop a brand that becomes extremely popular in a short span of time. If you design promotional t-shirts that are soon dumped in the closets because they cannot be worn, you will not achieve much. Because building your company brand will take time, you must choose the right kind of t-shirt to build your brand with. This is one of the single most important characteristic features of promotional merchandise. If you get it wrong the first time, you will cause more harm than good to your brand.

To begin building your company brand with a custom printed t-shirt, you must first start by identifying your target audience. Who do you want to target with your brand marketing? Once you know who your audience is, you need to sit down and prepare a budget for the production and distribution the branded t-shirts. If you are going to give away t-shirts for brand awareness, you need to identify the platform which you will use to give them away.

T-shirts can be given away in exhibitions, trade shows, to employees to show your appreciation and inspire motivation, to customers as a token of gratitude for their loyalty to the company and also to prospect. You can also give away t-shirt when you are launching a new product or service. T-shirts are one of the best promotional giveaway items because they are great for creating visibility and have a very large surface for the printing of the logo, message and name of the company.

Both the front and the back sides of the t-shirt can be used to communicate the brand of the company to audiences. You must use a t-shirt that is of good quality and the printing quality of the t-shirts must be good for your brand to be built effectively. If you use cheap and poor quality printing or t-shirts, you will be doing a disservice to your brand and it would have been better not to engage in the promotional campaign. If you must promote with a t-shirt, your focus must be on something that people will want to wear and use. High quality cotton t-shirts would be ideal for branding your company with. You will find many online vendors from whom you can buy and get the t-shirts designed.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amin_Ramjee

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