Deciding where to put my designs on the shirts...

I asked a few mates with printed tees on if I could photograph them whilst wearing them to see how a design works with a t-shirt when the t-shirt is being worn. Mainly to see how the material falls whilst on the body. I thought it would be a helpful experiment that would allow me to see if my scale of illustration would work well with the way material falls. I don't want to find that i lose half of my design under someone's armpit because I've placed it too close to the edge! Or that it's too close to the bottom and it's been tucked in...





















I have been looking at where to place the designs on paper layouts too...

Researching T-shirt prints in context...

I have also been researching into printed tees in high street shops as well as visiting specialist screen print t-shirt shops. These are some of the photos that I took whilst out seeing them in context...

Print Process Research...

I can't get these bloody scans to post the right way up so you'll just have to read them upside down!

Research Visit...

On Monday I arranged a visit to The White Label Clothing Company in Queens Arcade, Leeds to talk one on one to the good peeps that print, design and sell t-shirts. It was great, I got to talk to one of the designers themselves and ask all about the process and work that goes into producing t-shirts. They are a male clothing company and specialise predominantly in mens printed tees. transfer and silkscreened. The perfect place for inspiration and research. So I took my trusty camera and these are the photos I took...

















The guy was really helpful and said should I have any other questions not to hesitate in coming back. He did a lot of the design him self and spoke about the clients he usually gets, how popular tees sell and how the white tees are always the main sellers. They only stock small, underground labels that produce limited edition or one-off designs and have two stores, one in Manchester and one in Leeds. i found the visit really helpful. it made me aware of where to place my design on a t-shirt, how bold a design needs to be and how it falls on a person when they have the t-shirt on. I'm happy I stuck to white as my t-shirt stock as I think the designs will work really well on them, however I'd be happy to screen print onto a colour too for experiment.

Many thanks to the White label Clothing Company!

P.s this is their website: http://www.whitelabelclothing.co.uk/index.php

The silkscreen printing process...

I have been doing some research into how you actually print onto a t-shirt as I havent actually used the process before. here is a great simplistic desciprion of how to do it:

"Screens are made by putting a chemical emulsion on a mesh surface. Vector artwork is taken from Adobe Illustrator or Freehand and printed out on a film type paper or vellum. The screen is then exposed on a light table with the artwork under it. The light solidifies the chemicals around the design, and where the light failed to pass through, the chemical breaks down. The screen is then rinsed out and what is left is the area where the light hit.

The shirt is placed on a platen and each screen swings around over the top of the shirt. The screen is then brought down and placed on top of the shirt. A squeegee is then pulled over that screen's ink colour which pushes the ink onto the shirt fabric. That screen is then lifted, carefully off of the shirt (If the shirt moves or is stretched, the next colour will be out of registration). The platen with the shirt is then moved under a flash unit where it dries. Upon curing, the shirt platen is brought back and the next colour screen is swung over the top of it." - http://www.indigoclothing.com/screen-printing/





I think this visual of multi colour printing shows a good example of how to over lay the screens...