Where would fashion, advertising--even politics-- be without screen-printed t-shirts and logoed apparel?

Imprinted t-shirts can make a splash,  make a point or make a fashion statement.   These walking billboards can make you smile, cringe, pick up the telephone or buy a brand.

For anyone contemplating the purchase of one off-the-rack shirt---or dozens of their own promotional custom shirts, there are a few things that should be kept in mind.

• FABRIC: T-shirt fabric is generally a jersey knit and comes in various weights.  Weight refers to what a square yard of material weighs.  Most "heavyweight" shirts weigh between 5.5 - 6.1 ounce per square yard.  As a rule, fabric is either 100% cotton or a 50/50 blend of cotton and polyester fibers, with premium weight tees like Hanes Beefy being 6.1 oz 100% cotton.
• COLORS: It would be hard to name a color you can't find in a t-shirt!  In custom printing, the color of the shirt can make a significant difference in the price of a shirt.  White shirts are the least expensive, darks like red and navy are the most expensive because of the added cost of the dying process and the fact that applying light ink on dark shirts takes additional steps in the printing process.
• PRINTING: Each color in each location in a printed t-shirt requires a separate screen.  A two-color front and 3-color back print requires 5 screens, and each shirt must be printed 2-separate times on the front, removed from machine, put through a dryer, but back on the machine and printed 3 additional time.  Printing on dark shirts requires "flash" drying inbetween each print in order to avoid bleed-through of the fabric dye into the ink.
• PRICING:  Custom screen printed apparel pricing is based on the color of the item and the number and location of the imprint colors and athe number of pieces printed.  Pricing for EMBROIDERED apparel is based on the number of stitches in the digitized design and the number of pieces printed.  Most embroidery machines have 6, 12 or 18 sewing "heads" and it takes as long to embroider 1 piece as it does 6, 12 or 18 depending on the machine.  The more you embroider--the less expensive per piece.

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