What to Look for in a Screen Printer
Posted December 8th, 2017 by Jesse MacKenzie

Finding a screen printer for your custom shirts is easy, but finding the right printer can be very difficult. Shirts are an awesome marketing tool when made & utilized correctly. If you treat shirts like an investment instead of an expense, and if you treat your printer like a partner in business you can get more people wearing your shirts and spreading your message.

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Guaranteed Quantities 2.0: Damages
Posted August 16th, 2017 by Jesse MacKenzie

This is a follow up to our Guaranteed Quantities blog post. Reading back through it, we realized that we’ve never formally or publicly dug into damages and explained what they are, how they happen, and how we handle them.

The reason Guaranteed Quantities is so important is because of damages; sometimes shirts don’t make it perfectly from the factory to your doorstep. We are still frustrated by damages, (and all of our printers are working hard to limit them as much as possible) but Guaranteed Quantities allows us to stay confident that our customers are getting what they ordered, and allows our customers to rest easy knowing their orders will never show up short, even if damages still happen.

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Taking the Shortages out of Screen Printing
Posted July 24th, 2017 by Jesse MacKenzie

It’s a situation we’re very familiar with: You want to get shirts for your office team, but how many do you order? If you order exactly what you need one might get messed up and leave someone bummed out and shirtless, but if you order more than you need you might get stuck with extra shirts that you already paid for and no one wants…

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Fabric Blends
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

One of the biggest factors to consider when picking a garment to print on is the fabric blend. The blend makes a huge difference in how the shirt responds to ink, as well as the feel and durability of the garment. Fabric blends can also limit our ability to use certain inks or techniques.

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Migration
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

Migration refers to any sort of discoloration caused by the dye of the shirt affecting the ink color. When certain fabrics and dyes are heated up to cure the ink, they can release some of their dye which seeps into the ink. This can be apparent as soon as it leaves the dryer or can shift the ink color over time and be noticed a week or more later.

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Zippers, Seams, Pockets & Screen Printing
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

Zippers, seams, and pockets require special attention any time a print comes near them. The screen printing process is built for flat surfaces. We are constantly making sure that every piece of equipment is balanced and flat for a consistent application of ink on every single garment. Zippers, seams, and pockets all represent a disruption of this flat surface. This disruption can cause gaps, breaks, and a loss of registration.

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Vector vs. Raster
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

Vector and Raster are often used, but are rarely understood terms that can be quite confusing for someone new to the concept. Vector vs. Raster are completely different in how they work, what they are made of, what they should be used for, and how they react to editing. Generally, vector images are created in Adobe Illustrator, and raster images are created in Adobe Photoshop.

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Underbase
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

An underbase is a layer of ink that goes underneath a print to cover a dark or colored shirt. Inks are somewhat transparent, so printing on a bright red shirt will tint all of the ink red, and printing on a shirt that is darker than the ink will make it appear darker. To solve this, we print a layer of white ink, then cure it so it doesn’t mix with the other inks, then the other colors are printed on top of the white base without being affected by the fabric color.

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Print Size and Placement
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

An important decision that must be made during print preparation is print size. Print size is very subjective, some people love huge, full garment prints and others prefer a small chest print. It’s impossible for us to know what your preferences are for a specific design, so we ask that you send us your desired print size and placement along with your art.

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CMYK
Posted January 26th, 2015 by Jesse MacKenzie

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. In printing, CMYK refers to a specific set of inks that can reproduce the full color spectrum. This is accomplished through a halftone pattern of small dots at different sizes and different colors printed next to each other, so that from a distance the eye perceives the simulated colors and doesn’t recognize the individual dots.

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