6 Tips When Preparing T-Shirt Designs Before Having It Printed
The success of your t-shirt business relies on the quality of your products. It’s not only about the material of the shirts, but the printing of your designs has a huge impact too!
When you use good quality print files and even better quality materials for the shirt itself, you want to make sure that the designs used are what your customers really want; otherwise, you’ll end up with a dissatisfied client that could give you a bad review—in turn, hurting your business.
The trick here is to ensure that the preparation of the print files is perfect. Here are some tips that can help you out:
1. Convert All Fonts To Outlines
Before you submit your print files, convert the fonts to outlines or attach them to your order. When fonts are not outlined, and your printer doesn’t have the font in-house, then it will not appear in Illustrator. That means your printer won’t be able to provide you with a mockup design, which can cause delays to an already lengthy process.
2. Create Your Design At Actual Size
Make sure to create the design in its final size. If you don’t know what size to use, use a ruler to measure the shirt. This is crucial, as simply estimating the design can lead to excessive spending—which will be extra costs for poorer outputs.
3. Use PMS Color
Select your design colors from a PMS book. This is a universal color pallet because colors vary on monitors. By selecting a color pallet here, your design will appear in the exact color you want. Moreover, PMS colors make the color separations a lot easier and more accurate.
4. Embed Linked Images
The linked images must be embedded into the artwork—take note, we say it must be embedded, not pasted! Failure to embed the design will not show up on your printer’s end, which will prevent them from making any necessary adjustments to the artwork.
5. Adjust The Negative Space
The negative space is what surrounds certain elements of an object, and it draws attention to the positive space or design elements. However, if it’s too small, the ink could distort the original design. That is why you need to take a moment to review your design and adjust the negative space to be at least 1.5 pt.
6. Always Check The Size Of The Text
For any text to be legible and readable on a t-shirt, it must at least be 6pt. A too-small text may not be readable when it’s printed—thus wasting your design entirely! As such, before you send your design to the printers, ensure that the design features the correct text size.
Ready For Printing!
Prepping your design for t-shirt printing must be done properly, or else you could end up with poor designs and project delays. Sure, your printer will provide you with mockups, but if you have to change it several times because you’re not fully prepared, then you’re wasting a lot of time and effort on one design!
To avoid this, ensure your design is ready to be printed when you submit your files. By then, you will be able to save more of your time and launch the shirts as soon as possible. Business delays aren’t good, so make sure you prep and finalize everything before you send them out to be printed.
Are you looking for a reliable custom printing service in Spencerport, NY, to handle your t-shirt printing needs? Bauers Boutique provides premium custom screen printing services with quick turnaround times and no minimum orders. Contact us today and let us fulfill your printing needs!