Print Size and Placement

Jesse MacKenzie
January 26th, 2015

Location, Location

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.

Print sizes and placements are difficult to grasp, we’ve been doing this for a long time and we are still constantly expanding our thoughts on the issue. These are a few ideas about print size and placement that will help you make informed decisions.

Jumbo vs. Regular

Print Size and Placement

About 95% of our prints fit in the “regular” sizing category. Regular screens can fit a print as big as 15.5″ x 19.5″. The front shoulder seams on a standard adult small tee are around 14″ apart, so in general a regular screen size will work for any art that doesn’t cross a seam.

If you have a specialty print that needs to fill the shirt vertically or extend past the shoulder seams, then you will need a jumbo screen. Jumbo screens are 17.5″ x 23.5″ which is our maximum print size. This will completely fill the front of a standard Adult size-small shirt. There is no difference in print quality between the two, but jumbo screens require a specific press setup.

Plan Ahead

If you’re going to be ordering shirts frequently, we suggest you get a mannequin so you can measure and plan out your print sizes and placements. It’s hard to envision what a shirt will look like on a person when you’re looking at it laying flat. Many designers will print out their art full-sized on paper, cut it out, and place it on a shirt to help visualize the final product.

If you can decide on a print size and measurement before you send your art, it will speed up the mockup process and you’ll be even more in control of the final product. The less you leave up to our educated guessing, the more confident you can feel that your print will turn out exactly how you pictured it.

Placement

We have default placements that we pick when it’s not specified, but placements are highly subjective. Take some of your favorite shirts, decide if you like the placement, and then measure it flat from the bottom of the collar, to the top of the print. This will give you a much better idea of how a flat mockup relates to a real person, and will give you the knowledge to specify placements for your prints.

Just like with print size, printing out a full-sized version of your art and pinning to a shirt will help you pick a specific placement. Once we pick a placement on an adult small, we will adjust the placement to appear proportionately the same on every other size unless you specify otherwise.

Jesse is our Creative Director. He splits his time between the Art Department and Creative duties, looking to innovate and push the company in both areas (unless he overslept.)

Filed under: Educate