t-shirt sizes and design sizes

[thespirals]

Hey everyone,

I have a question about printing t-shirts.....I want to start a business that sells t-shirts and other screen printed clothes and accessories that have my own designs on them. I'm thinking of doing more of the kind of designs that go up the right or left side of the front of the shirt, and not as many deisngs that go straight in the middle. I'm also probably going to do specifically girl shirts. So my question is that do I have to adjust the size of the deisgn for every different size shirt? If not, the design would look correct on a small or medium shirt, but much smaller on a large or xl shirt. Do you all set up your screens to do every size from one design, or do you have to set up different screens for every different sized shirt, because you might have to make the design bigger for bigger shirts?

[scrojo]

it almost sounds like you've answered your own question. if it's important that the design fit on a shirt an exact way....... seperate designs for seperate sizes.


am i missing something ???

[TWOFOUR]

I have found that a design that is sized to fit to 15X18 will fit on a girls small and still look ok on a mens large.

[Clay]

I did 2 different sizes for the GigPosters.com shirts in the merch section. Women's are smaller. (looks way better)

[steve w]

printing over seams is a bitch

[thespirals]

alright, I'll keep that in mind and probably make each design have two different sizes and two different set-ups....smaller sized design for smalls and mediums, and a bigger sized design for large and xl. I was hoping to be able to print all sizes for one design set-up, but I guess I can't half-ass this kind of stuff! Thanks for all the quick replies!

[steve w]

how much experience do you have printing on shirts?
are you set up for plastisol, etc.?
If your answers are "not much" and "no", respectively, and you're really interested in
not half-assing it, you might want to look into a pro printer.
Not trying to rain on your parade or anything, but you can lose a fortune in misprinted shirts. I learned the hard way 15 years ago.
If you are experienced and have equipment, then good luck.

[thespirals]

No, I don't have experience with t-shirts and plastisol, unfortunately. Don't know if there are any classes, and I wish I could get a job doing t-shirt printing but everyone wants experience. I've printed on paper with water based ink. So my plan has been to invest in the equipment, I am going to start out with a 4-color printing press and get a flash dryer, along with all the other equipment I would need for any kind of screenprinting, and experiment on just fabric swatches or maybe some old t-shirts turned inside out from the goodwill dump until I get the hang of it. I also bought a book that gives a lot of good tips on t-shirt printing, what inks to use, what mesh sizes...but yeah..I am new to textile printing.

I've thought about having a professional do my printing for me, but they charge quite a lot for the preparation of the screens for each color, and since I'm not going completely large scale with the amount of t-shirts printed per design, it seems like I wouldn't really benefit from it because of the expense. I could maybe hire an experienced printer to work in my own shop though? How much do people expect to get paid by the hour?

[squeegeethree]

The only way to do it right is to do a different design for EVERY single shirt. Don't repeat yourself ever. If you want to sell 1000 shirts a month then you need to make 1000 different designs. AND remember cheap fabric and dim lighting that's the way to move merchandise.

[slakow]

Printing shirts is a fucked up business.
Maybe with good equipment goes easier.