Generally, shirt printing isn’t always as straight forward as it may seem and many of our first-time customers have a lot of questions. They centre around the same topics, so here a collection of the most frequently asked questions in order to make your life a little bit easier:
General Enquiries
You will be able to see the price per print on our eDesigner platform. The more you order, the cheaper the price per t-shirt gets, so feel free to play around with quantities to see how much you can save.
If you are after at least 20 units, we would like to encourage you to email us directly for an individual quote. Depending on your design, we might be able to determine a cheaper print technique for you.
If you are after an item that we don’t sell via our wholesale shop, such as sport singlets & tees, rash vests, leggings and work wear, the price will strongly depend on the blank garment price and the most suitable print technique we need to employ. Best to send us an email and we will work out the best prices for you!
We aim to print standard shirt orders in 5-7 business days depending on the quantity of garments. If you require your order shipped to you, you would need to allow an additional 3-5 business days for shipping depending on your location.
For orders over 30 garments you should allow an additional day or two, especially if multiple prints are involved.
If your order is urgent and we have your shirt/s in stock, we can have your order printed and the finishing touches added within 1-2 days but you will need to send us an email or call to make sure we can make your deadline before placing the order. Please note that a rush fee of 20% (and express postage if applicable) may apply in this instance.
You would need to order at least one t-shirt. That would be good.
We sure can! We have around 20 garment suppliers that we regularly source blank stock from, so if you are after a specific style or colour, send us an email and we will respond with a few garment options and prices.
That depends a little bit on the print technique we would need to use for your specific design.
The most versatile form of printing, direct-to-garment printing, is very depended on the garment fabric and can only be performed on garments made from cotton. Because the print result is so dependent on the fabric, we won’t be able to guarantee the same print quality as when we use shirts that we have tried and tested millions of times. Inks are generally cured under high heat and stains can occur from unknown chemicals “burning” in the fabric. As long as you are willing to take the risk, we are happy to do a test print for you and 9 times out of 10 everything works out well.
If you require printing on polyester garments, our default direct-to-garment printing method won’t work. We would either need to perform a screen print, which is however limited to a minimum quantity of 20 units and a maximum of 6 colours in your design. Alternatively, we can print your garments using heat transfers, which is a full colour digital print applied to textile vinyl, which is then heat-pressed onto your garments. Heat Transfers are also quite versatile but because designs are contour-cut (similar to a sticker) not every design is suitable for this print technique.
Be sure to contact us directly if you are planning on using your own garments and discuss fabric requirements before you purchase your blank shirts.
Print After Care To get the most out of your prints, make sure you stick to the following care instructions:
- gentle cold machine wash INSIDE OUT
- no harsh chemicals or detergents
- line dry in shade
- NO TUMBLE DRYING
If you questions are of technical nature, read on below…
Technical Enquiries
If you are using our online designer platform, high resolution PNG files are preferred but we also accept high resolution JPEG, GIF or PDF files.
If you require screen printing (for instance because of a large order quantity and a design with only 1-6 colours) or heat transfers (for instance if your design is full colour but your shirts are made from polyester) then we would need your design as a vector format. Vectors are of highest resolution and have the file extension .eps, .ai, .svg or .pdf.
Ideally your photo or design should have a resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch). Sometimes you can find out the resolution of your file by checking its properties. On Windows right click the file and click on “properties”. On a Mac hit Command i and a small window will pop up. If you can’t find out the resolution, a rule of thumb is that your design or photo shouldn’t be blurry when you enlarge it on your computer screen to the size that you want it printed.
It’s tricky…even if you increase the height and width of your graphic, the resolution or pixel density (or lack thereof) will remain the same and result in a visual pixelation when printed onto your garment. There are some free enhancing programs available online but the results are somewhat questionable.
We work with some great graphic designers who have the skills to turn your low resolution images into high quality print files (which you get to keep) for a small fee. Send us an email and we will respond with a proper graphic design quote.
If you are printing onto white garments, any white background won’t be printed by the printer. If, however you are printing onto a coloured garment and the background of your image / graphic is white, the printer will recognise this as printable area.
There are a few ways to get rid of your background:
Photoshop: Delete the background layer/s by dragging them into the bin of the layers panel or use the magic wand tool to select any background you don’t want. The delete key of your keyboard should be able to do the rest for you (make sure your layer isn’t locked). If you have any difficulties, email us and we will remove the background for you free of charge.
Because we are employing a digital printer, we are bound to a CMYK colour spectrum. This means that RGB colour designs or spot colour designs will be converted to a similar CMYK colour shade. In other words, depending on the colour scheme your photo or artwork is designed in you may experience minor or major variations in the end print result.
If you are concerned about any colour variations, please let us know. We understand that corporate branding principles often prescribe the use of an exact spot colour or pantone colour, so please do point this out to us and we will find the best solution for you.
Our recommended size for a print across the chest is no more than 25cm in width. Much larger prints will cover the side areas of the tee, sitting on the side of the body (below your arms) and your print / message will be less visible or readable. For smaller chest prints (also called “pocket prints”) we recommend a print width between 7 cm and 10 cm depending on the height of the design. Back prints can be a little larger and your limit is only determined by the maximum print size shown in our online designer tool.
On standard crew neck tees our guidelines are as follows:
- Pocket-print / small chest print: one hand-width down from the collar and placed in the middle between the centre line and an imaginary line drawn down from the sleeve seam.
- Across-the-chest print: one hand-with down from the collar
- Back print: one hand-width down from the back collar
On tees with wider neck lines we usually bring the prints up to about 4-5cms under the collar.