How Are T-Shirts Printed?
One of my favorite things to do is search
through second-hand stores for t-shirts with curious designs and wry sayings. I
get to make my personal statement as I walk down the street. T-shirts are to
the self-employed what a yellow power tie is to an executive—self-expression.
But how are they produced? I thought about
this recently and did some research. Some of the information was new to me.
Much of it I already knew. But what surprised me was the large number of
printing options. Here are a handful to get you started.
For years, most of the t-shirts I saw were
produced in a heat press by pressing a transfer sheet with a vinyl applique
against the t-shirt fabric. In this method a plotter first cuts out a design in
any number of colors from separate sheets of colored vinyl. These pieces are
then arranged on the shirt, which is placed on a platen to keep everything in
place and the fabric flat. When the top of the heat press comes down onto the
shirt and vinyl, the high temperature fuses the vinyl (which is coated with
adhesive) to the shirt.
If you run your hand across such a product,
you'll feel the raised vinyl in the design. It has a bit of a rough feel.
Unlike some of the other methods for t-shirt decoration, the vinyl does not
become a part of the fabric. Rather it it sits on top of the fabric to which it
has been adhered.
Vinyl transfers are usually durable if
properly applied and do not crack or peel even when the garment is washed
repeatedly. In fact, the transfer vinyl may outlast the t-shirt.
One of the benefits of using this method of
t-shirt decoration is that you can economically produce a very short print run
(even one t-shirt). Therefore, it is a good option for adding numbers to shirts
(for sports jerseys, for example).
Unfortunately, you can't produce gradients
or halftones within the t-shirt art. The process only lends itself to single
(or multiple) flat colors.
Screen Printing and Plastisol
Nothing beats the thick ink of screen
printing, in my opinion. Screen printed ink has a substantial feel and is
durable. The ink sits up on the surface of the t-shirt as well as seeping into
the fabric because of its thick body.
Using photo silk screen processes
(involving a computer, light-sensitive emulsions, and chemicals), you can
create gradients and halftone images. This puts screen printing ahead of
heat-transfer vinyl in terms of design flexibility.
However, this is an expensive process. A
lot of work has to be done to prepare the screens for the actual printing, so
only a long press run can usually justify screen printing. You wouldn't choose
this method for one shirt.
That said, you can replicate the
traditional (direct) screen printing look with pre-screened plastisol inks
applied to transfer sheets. Basically, this is a screen printed image produced
on a paper liner, which you then affix to the shirt using a heat press (high
temperature combined with high pressure).
One of the benefits of such a process is
that you can either buy or produce a number of screen printed transfer sheets
and then affix them one at a time to the t-shirts. This gives you the ability
to stock fewer blank shirts and print them as needed, choosing the proper sized
shirt for the customer (rather than keeping all screen printed t-shirt sizes
and all colors in stock).
In addition to traditional 4-color
printing, plastisol transfers are good for glitter, foil, puff, and sparkle
printing.
The screen printed product is durable. Like
transfer vinyl, the screen printed image may even outlast the t-shirt.
Unfortunately, screen printing the transfer
sheets takes time since it is usually a subcontracted operation.
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