Thursday, December 22, 2011

How to Screen Print A T-Shirt

To understand the time and care that is taken into each silk screen printed job, we thought it would be helpful to show you what happens each time we have a job to print.
The first step is you sending us your artwork when you place your order through our PrintMojo system.

Once we have the artwork, it gets sent to our art department for processing.
They take a look at your printing instructions and come up with a composite proof for you so you can see what your design will look like on the t-shirts (or hats, sweatshirts, baby doll tees or other garments).
Our proofs will show you the ink colors to be used on your order, the print size dimensions for your artwork, and it will confirm the specific print locations you have instructed us to print.

At this time, you can instruct the art department to make any changes you see fit. If you'd like different ink colors used in your design, just let us know. If you'd like it to be printed smaller, just let us know.
We don't print your job until you are thrilled with your proof and you have specifically approved it for printing. We'll work with you until you are 100% satisfied with your design!
After the art has been approved, we need to output the film that we use to make the screens.
First we print the film



Turning out the lights:

All of the art is then pre-registered and checked for detail and quality:
then we check the film's registration and detail
Once the art is completely approved in-house we send the job to our screen dept.

The first step in the screen department is to coat the screens with a photosensitive emulsion
coating the screens
Next, the screen dries, and it is placed on the vacuum light table and exposed with a 3000 watt metal halide light.

light table       halide light
The Final Touches:

After being exposed the screens are then washed out with a pressure washer at around 1300 psi.
Once the image is washed out, it is double checked with the films for accuracy.


pressue washed double checked


The Actual Printing Process:

Each color in the design needs a screen and each screen must be blocked, taped, setup, and squeegeed.

Just imagine if we had to do this each time a t-shirt was ordered. You can see why screen printing was designed to print quality garments in bulk quantities.

For smaller runs, we may use one of our manual presses. For larger runs with more colors, we use our 8 head automatic press.

By "flashing" or drying the ink between each color layer, we are able to give you bright, professional quality printing, with years of wear and tear :-)
Blocking
blocking
Tape
taping
Setup
setup
Print
printing / squeegeeing
There you have it. Most ALL other companies charge for this process.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Top T-Shirt Shops in California

California is known for a lot of things. They have Hollywood. They have excessive heat. They have Disneyland and its magically delicious churros. They have irritating commercials that star a governor that once played the role of “Muscleman” in a movie called “The San Pedro Beach Bums.” Californians also wear t-shirts all the time, and all the cool people flock to these t-shirt hot spots with tee designs that are too cool for school.

D-Structure (San Francisco)























D-Structure is a combination shirt store/art gallery located in the Lower Haight neighborhood. With
designs ranging from an undead Donald Duck to a psychedelic pink tree, D-Structure tries to create an art community with both their designs and products, often hosting events for men and women in their mid-twenties/early thirties who want to socialize with like-minded new age art lovers and/or flirt with girls who dig t-shirts.


Armory Hip Hop Shop (San Diego)


Although they still don’t seem to sell any chain mail or Viking helmets, the Armory Hip Hop Shop in San Diego is one of the only SD stores with unique hip hop inspired clothing for the urban gangsta inside you. Their t-shirts have the standard graffiti style that is popular in the industry, but they also have an artistic flavor that makes their designs more unique than any random urban clothing store you find in some mall.


Johnny Cupcakes (Los Angeles)

 


There are two things in life that are truly important. Obviously the first is t-shirts. All empirical studies suggest that the meaning of life is the creation and/or purchase of amazing shirt designs. Ask any religion and they’ll tell you the same thing. But a close second, of course, is cupcakes and all their overpriced goodness. So any place that manages to sell both cupcakes and awesome t-shirts has to be one of the best spots for t-shirts in the state, quite possibly the world. That is why if you’re in Los Angeles, you should stop by Johnny Cupcakes – a 24 hour cupcake/shirt store with colorful pop culture designs including, but not limited to, a cupcake skull and crossbones. The perfect shirt to be buried in? Quite possibly yes.

MICHAEL JACKSON T-SHIRTS

Back in June, when the King of Pop died, created cool Michael Jackson tees. But now, after 2 months since his death, many more t-shirt brands have created Michael Jackson t-shirts . 


michael jackson birds t-shirt

michael jackson one glove t-shirt 
michael jackson billie jean t-shirt  michael jackson pop is dead t-shirt michael jackson moon t-shirtmichael jackson king of pop t-shirt jackson 4 t-shirt


Walkin on the Moon

The Iller
Long Live the King

Long Live the King
Michael Jackson ’09
Who’s Bad?

michael jackson black or white t-shirt mj rip t-shirt
michael jackson rip t-shirt michael jackson thriller t-shirt
michael jackson death t-shirtmichael jackson t-shirt
mj king of pop t-shirt michael jackson thriller t-shirt michael jackson thriller t-shirt I love MJ t-shirt