Wearing printed t shirts is a trend that has been on the rise for may decades now. With the amazing advancements of technology, shirt printing methods are easy to understand and extremely economical to carry out. Sporting a design or a message on your custom printed shirts is a great way of getting noticed and bringing to the fore a unique and individualistic mode of expression, the likes of which have never been seen before.
Shirt printing machines and equipment have become fairly simple to acquire now, and as a result there are a variety of printing methods that are commonly in use today. The style of the design, the composition of the ink, the embroidery and the quality and material of the shirt all play a major role in determining which methods are best suited for which shirt. You may have seen many people sporting cheap printed t shirts, and this is a line of business that is easy to enter, and extremely profitable as well.
Different Types of Shirt Printing Techniques
Getting the best possible design on custom printed shirts is the key. The positioning of the design, its size and the colors that constitute it also play a fundamental part in the aesthetic value of the shirt. The various methods that you can use will produce different kinds of effects, and each of these techniques has their own advantages and disadvantages.
Screen Printing
This is one of the cheapest and most popular methods. There is hardly any shirt printing equipment involved in the application of this method as well. This is a method that involves the use of a stencil made of wood or aluminum, which is placed on top of the t shirt that is going to hold the design. The drawback is the one screen can be used for one color only, but that is a minimal price to pay if you are utilizing this method to print t shirts in bulk. Paints or other kinds of ink are used through the stencils in order to get the design on the t shirt.
Digital Printing
Since the production of inkjet printers, direct to garment printing, or digital printing, is one of the most common methods used by people who either print their own shirts or wish to sell cheap printed t shirts. Since the designs are created digitally, there is tremendous scope to create intricate and detailed designs. This method turns out to be kind of expensive though, and as a result should be used by people who already have an established business set up.
Embroidery
Out of all the different types of shirt printing techniques, this is perhaps the oldest of them all. This method involves actually stitching, or embroidering, the design onto the shirt, and as a result requires hours of manual labor and a great artistic inclination. Since it is difficult to manually embroider large designs on a shirt, this method is usually used for small designs, or logos or some kind of text. The effect this produces is completely different from that produced by all the other methods.
Hand Painting
This is again an old-fashioned method of making custom printed shirts. Painting or airbrushing with the hand requires a lot of time and patience by the maker, not to mention great artistic ability as well. Nevertheless, this is one of the very popular methods, owing to the amount of creativity and uniqueness that the creator can add to the design. It also lends a sense of pride to the wearer if he/she has designed and painted the shirt themselves.
Heat Transfers
Also known as plastisol transfers, this method is also extremely popular. The design that is desired on the shirt is transferred to a carrier paper. From this carrier paper this design can be further transmitted onto the shirt by applying heat and pressure on the paper, after placing it on the surface of the t shirt. The heat enables the ink to get permanently embellished on the fabric.
These were just a few methods that are frequently and commonly used. Apart from these, there are many other techniques as well, that may not be quite as effective as these, but their effect will still be visible. When you choose a certain method to use, ensure that the design does not fade away easily. There are many instructions that will prevent this from happening.
