Artwork Setup for Custom T-Shirts
By The Velocity Wear Team
Send vector artwork wherever possible: an AI, EPS, PDF or SVG with fonts outlined and colours named. If you only have a raster file, it needs to be at least 300 dpi at the size it will print, on a transparent background. Say where the design goes and how wide it should be in centimetres. That one line removes most of the back and forth.
What file should you send?
Vector, with the type converted to outlines so nothing reflows on a machine that does not have your font. Name the colours rather than leaving them to be guessed, and keep each print position in its own file or its own clearly labelled artboard. For embroidery, send the same vector and expect it to be digitised into a stitch file, which is a separate process from printing and is why an embroidery proof looks different from a print proof. Our wholesale t-shirts page lists the decoration options, and the pricing page shows how quantity affects the run.
What if you only have a JPG or a PNG?
It is workable more often than people fear. A high-resolution PNG with a transparent background prints well through DTF, because DTF handles raster artwork natively. Where raster files struggle is screen printing, which needs clean colour separations, and embroidery, which needs the shapes redrawn as stitch paths anyway. A low-resolution logo pulled off a website will look soft at chest size and terrible at back size, so it is worth finding the original before the run rather than after.
How is artwork prepared for each method?
For screen printing the design is separated into one film per colour and each film burns a screen, which is why colour count drives the setup. For DTF the file is printed onto transfer film and cured, so colour count is free but very fine detail can close up. For embroidery the artwork is digitised: someone decides stitch direction, density and underlay, and small type is either simplified or dropped because thread has a minimum practical size. For 3D puff the shapes are thickened, so thin strokes are redrawn or removed.
What should the proof round check?
Five things, and only five. Print position measured from the shoulder seam. Print width in centimetres. Ink or thread colours. Garment colour and fabric weight between 150 and 240 GSM. And the size split, which has to add up to at least the 50-piece minimum. Approving those starts the 10 to 15 working day production window. Anything changed after approval restarts the setup for the affected decoration, so name one person to approve rather than circulating it for opinions. If you want the physical article in hand first, sampling before a bulk order explains the £150 credit.
How big should the print actually be?
A left chest mark is typically 7 to 10cm wide. A full front graphic usually sits between 25 and 30cm wide on an adult tee, and a back print can go a little wider. The trap is scaling artwork by eye on a screen: a logo that looks right at 100% zoom is often half the size you imagined on the garment. Give the measurement in centimetres and the proof will come back right the first time. Which decoration method to use affects how large a design can sensibly go.
What should you send alongside the artwork?
A short specification, in the same email. Garment colour and weight from the 150 to 240 GSM range, fit, the size split, the decoration method, the position measured from the shoulder seam, the print width in centimetres and the ink or thread colour references. Artwork without that context generates questions, and questions are where days go. If there is more than one print position, label the files by position rather than by version number, because version three of a back print and version three of a chest print look identical in a folder and are not interchangeable on a machine.
