Most likely you’ve spent a great deal of time on creating and building your brand. So, how strong is your brand? Is its strength and quality reflected in everything that you do and produce? It should. Everything from your logo, emails, office space, website, newsletters, stickers, apparel and other swag, are an extension of your brand. It represents who you are, and it’s important that you put just as much effort in making each of those aspects the highest quality possible.
This principle equally applies to the printing process when ordering apparel from Real Thread. We are passionate about what we do and about giving you the highest quality and best feeling t-shirt. In the printing process, your artwork is the most important component in ensuring that your t-shirt is of the highest quality. The “garbage in, garbage out” principle is very true in screen printing—just as important as it is in any business.
How does that apply to screen printing? It’s imperative to know that starting with low resolution or low quality art will result in a poor quality image on a shirt. If artwork is small, fuzzy or blurry, that’s exactly how the artwork will look on your t-shirt. If you want a great print, remember to start with a great art file. This is critical in affecting the separations, screen prep and quality control.
For the best results, files should be high-resolution graphics and vector form; we prefer:
- EPS
- AI
If you don’t have a vector file, we recommend a minimum of 300dpi for the following formats:
- TIF
- JPG
Check out the comparison:
ARTWORK
A. Low Quality - Low Resolution JPG; 72dpi - jagged inconsistent lines, extra lines, spots where color is dropped
B. High Quality - High Resolution JPG; 300dpi - smooth consistent lines, color is dense
SCREENS - quality of the artwork continues onto the screen
A. Low Quality Screens - jagged inconsistent lines, extra lines, spots in the screen where the color was dropped in the artwork
Close-up View
Full View
B. High Quality Screens - smooth consistent lines creating an accurate stencil where the ink can fill the screen smoothly
Close-up View
Full View
PRINTED SHIRTS
A. Low Quality Print on Canvas 3001 (100% Cotton) - jagged inconsistent lines, extra lines, spots where the ink didn’t make it onto the shirt from low quality screen
Close-up View
Full View
B. High Quality Print on Canvas 3001 (100% Cotton)-smooth consistent lines, creating an even and smooth ink application onto the shirt
Close-up
Full View
Want some more visual assistance for this? Check out this file prep video.
If you need help making sure that your artwork meets our specs, any of our amazing Account Executives can walk you or talk you through it all.
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