VINYL

Vinyl is a thin sheet of plastic that is cut to your design and is then heat pressed to your garment of choice. Each color requires a different sheet of vinyl, so designs with minimal colors are perfect for this option. 

The ideal situation for a quick shirt that is simple in design. Text only designs or non-intricate designs that you need quick in low quantities are what vinyl printing is made for. 

Although the process is simpler for vinyl designs, quantities higher than 100 shirts can be rather labor intensive. So we recommend for shirt quantities as low as 2 shirts to pick this option as we do not offer that low of quantity for our screen printing services. 

An advantage to vinyl printing is placement, anywhere on the garment goes! Tell us where you'd like it and we'll make sure it's there. 

FAQ

Q: How much does it cost?

A: Vinyl is a cheaper alternative to our screen printing services and is affordable in low volumes, but any quantity higher than 100, we recommend screen printing your design. Depending on the design, the price may vary, but is ideal if you have as low a quantity as 2 shirts. 

Q: What does Vinyl feel like?

A: Vinyl feels like a smooth surface that is raised a little above the garment. Since the vinyl is being pressed into the garment, it is sturdy and durable, but can be slightly restrictive or stiff since it is laying on top of the garment. 

On garments such as heavy weight hoodies or sweatshirts, the restrictiveness of vinyl is minimal.

Q: Why am I limited to 6 colors?

A: Vinyl layering is a very useful and unique way of getting your design on the garment, but due to several factors these options are limited to only 6 colors. Some reasons include:

• Too much vinyl causes stiffness & heaviness

• Material price grows with each color

• Labor becomes more extensive with each color

Q: Is 12in x 12in the largest size available?

A: For now, yes 12 in x 12 in is the largest size design we can offer, but this does not limit the number of designs on your garment. For example, your shirt design might be 16in long, but your logo takes up only 6in and text fills the remaining 10in. We can do that! 

But if the design is only one thing, i.e. inseparable, then we can not fulfill that order. We intend to be able for this to not be a problem at all, but with our current equipment it can not be done larger than 12in x 12in. 

Q: Can I ask you these questions and anything else I was confused about?

SCREEN PRINTING

Screen printing is a process in which ink is pressed through a stenciled screen and leaves your design on the garment. The possibilities of screen printing are very extensive and as such can be rather exhausting to learn about, so we don't expect for you to know or fully understand your options. Just know they exist and you can ask us about them anytime!

For most designs we typically will use plastisol ink which is standard in most practices of modern screen printing, but plastisol can be rather heavy and isn't always what you the customer may want.

We offer water-based inks, discharge inks and puff print as options when creating your shirts that offer a softer feel or a unique texture to your design, but the cost of ink may vary per ink.

Explore as many colors as you'd like with the CMYK process by turning photos or multi-colored designs into clothing for you to wear or sell! Using 4 colors, we can create your design to look just as it did on your computer with only slight dullness or vibrance changes in the final result. 

One color or grayscale designs as well are perfect for screen printing, using halftones we can translate the gradients of your design on to your shirt with only one color!

FAQ

Q: How much does it cost?

A: Screen printing is a relatively cheap process in large volumes of production. As the volume increases, the price per shirt goes down, but depending on your order, material, labor and fees can cause the price to vary.  

Please fill out our quote form in our contact page to get an accurate pricing of what you're looking to get done. Thank you!

Q: Where can my design be placed?

A: We recommend using standard printing locations when making your design as custom locations and wrap-around designs can require a lot of precision, time and money. We can do any placement you'd like, but if it is not one of these listed locations, it is considered a special order and will require more communication and money to do. 

List of standard locations:

• Full Front

• Chest

• Pocket/ Heart

• Sleeves (Short or Long)

• Full Back

• Upper Back

Q: What is the CMYK process?

A: CMYK refers to C - Cyan,  M - Magenta, Y - Yellow & K - Black.

When combining these four colors using color theory you can create just about any color you'd like. All forms of posters, packaging, newspapers and more use CMYK to produce their text, logos, package design and images, it is all around you. 

For screen printing, this is no different and is standard within the practice. Typically logos and specific colors used in company branding are not CMYK processed though and are often registered colors used to keep consistency among products. These are called Pantone colors or spot colors and we offer these colors for use as well. 

Q: What is the difference between Plastisol Ink & Water-based Ink?

A: Plastisol ink is the standard ink used among most screen printers beginner or old. It is a very versatile ink that can be used on just about any type of fabric. Due to plastisol being made from plastic, it can adhere to anything from cotton to rayon, but because of it being plastic it does not merge with shirt and instead fuses/ adheres to the fibers of the fabric. 

Unlike plastisol, water-based ink seeps into the fabric of the shirt and creates a much softer and lighter feel to the garment. Although the feel is much nicer, the durability of water based printing can wear over time, much more then plastisol will ever breakdown.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to both inks and is highly dependent on what's best for your design. We absolutely know what to use when it comes to your design and there's no need to worry about which is best for you, unless you would like to choose yourself!  

Q: Can you explain what Puff print is?

A: Puff print is pretty similar to it's name in that the ink puffs up on the garment and creates a 3D feel to your clothing! We love puff prints just as much as anyone else, but there are things to consider before ordering a puff print from us as it is not a common request from our shop. 

Getting the puff to be as puffy as you'd like may require many, many trial and errors or is simply not capable of being that puffy. Due to this, the puff may be a little flatter then you originally had imagined, but we assure you, it will still be very puffy. Some designs may not support a puff print, but it's hard to fully know until beginning production, so we ask for you to be prepared if we cannot use the puff ink for your design. 

When designing it's best to avoid small or thin designs for your puff print and use large, full, thick designs instead.

Q: What are Halftones?

A: Halftones are the only way to create gradients in your design when producing a t-shirt or likewise. Your design gets broken down into tiny little dots that grow in size depending on how dark the color is in certain areas. Good examples visually of this process are comic books. Although not the same in dots per inch, halftones are a common design trait of comic books.

When submitting your design, unless the artwork originally has halftone properties within in, please do not attempt to halftone your design before giving it to us. Our dots per inch (DPI) will likely not be the same as what you inputted, as our DPI is dependent entirely on which mesh count we choose to use per design.

Q: Can I ask you these questions and anything else I was confused about?