# Industry Standards for T Shirt Printing



## kbinpvb (Dec 15, 2011)

Hello! I just joined and posted this in the introduction, but I know that not everyone will see it there. I apologize if this is considered posting in multiple forums!

I have been working as a promotional advertising distributor for about a year. My company has been in business for more than 10 years, and we are ASI. I thought I new everything about T shirts after selling thousands this year, but now I have found an customer/artist that has challenged me and my printer! I have searched this forum and all over the internet for "industry standards" for the printing of T shirts. My customer is extremely picky regarding the image shifting up or down from shirt to shirt, the stretching of her image on the pallet, then looking "distorted" especially on smaller shirts. I need help! Please point me to the best resource. She is requesting "a list of industry standards, limitations and guidelines for printing tee shirts." Surely there is a document somewhere!! Please??

Thanks in advance!!


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## Flagrant-T (Nov 11, 2009)

I've never really seen industry standards for that kind of stuff. There are general limitations and guidlines, but those often very from printer to printer based on equipment, software, experience, etc.

These are the kind of customers that are really hard to make any money on and you are often times better off loosing. 

Good luck,
Nick


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## kbinpvb (Dec 15, 2011)

You are soooo right! I am about to fire her now! But, it would be great to have a document that at least identifies some broad "standards" and recognizes that we do have so much variability among machines, software, processes, etc.

Thanks for your reply!


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## mikelmorgan (Nov 1, 2008)

If your customer is complaining about these types of problems than you have a problem. As far as I know there aren't any "standards" to go by from one shop to the next, but if your shirt are shifting, stretching the design, distorting or anything like that than you have a problem. I would find another printer. To me these problems are what separates a good printer from a lazy one.


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## Flagrant-T (Nov 11, 2009)

mikelmorgan said:


> If your customer is complaining about these types of problems than you have a problem. As far as I know there aren't any "standards" to go by from one shop to the next, but if your shirt are shifting, stretching the design, distorting or anything like that than you have a problem. I would find another printer. To me these problems are what separates a good printer from a lazy one.


I agree with that (especially distortion and stretching), but if they were talking about shifting around, I have had one customer that pulled out a .001" caliper to show me some of my prints were varying 0.200" from each other in vertical placement from the neck. I've checked racks at retail stores for high-end brands and found more than that. 

Every process has resonable tolerances. During my day job, we grind steel to with 20 millionths of an inch from the target dimension, but it still varies within a tolerence. 

If your customer is finding rediculously small variations, and you have many, many happy customers, than I would think it is her. If your printer is really varying a lot print to print, than I agree, find a new printer.


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## AtkinsonConsult (May 2, 2011)

Karen:

Just some thoughts on your post. In the apparel decorating industry there aren't really any industry standards that everyone follows, just mainly common sense. Its been my experience that some shops are more craftsman like in their approach to printing than others. The devil is always in the details, and certainly this type of situation - where the customer has expectations that aren't being fully met is one.

In the t-shirt production environment printers want to do a great job and get as many shirts printed in a day as possible. "Standard" production placement for common locations may vary from one shop to the next....and also from press operator to press operator in one shop as well. Compound that with the huge variety of presses, garment styles and decoration methods and it's a pretty complex soup.

One of the ways that I have installed in my shop is to try to place as much information as possible at the press operator fingertips at the time of printing. All art approvals are printed with design information, but also location dimensions to where the image is to be placed on the shirt. (4" down from the collar for example) This tells everyone what's expected and where the top of the image should be located.

Just so you know, the "industry tolerance" (if you want to call it that) for placement is usually around 1/2" in any direction on the shirt...up, down, left, or right. Shirts are manually loaded onto the platen, and press operators do a great job of this repetitive task...but they aren't robots. Also, usually the smaller the shirt the more noticeable the problem if something is off.

And to make matters worse, some garments have issues with being good shirts to use for printing...as some garment dyed brands twist up during the process and make it very difficult to use the weave and grain of the shirt (or even the edges) as a guide when loading.

Also, if your press doesn't have the platens locked into position properly, when they move around the press on the auto, even if the operator loads every shirt perfectly this can throw off the print.

Some clients are pickier than others, it's true. For those it's best to nail down the expectations before running the job...both with the client and the printer.

Finally, if the images looked distorted or warped it could be because the printer used too much spray tack on the platen when printing, and when they pulled the shirt off the press it stretched slightly. Usually the fibers revert back to normal after you wash the garment. If this is the case, before you reprint the entire order, wash the shirts and dry them and then reexamine. This could save you from reordering everything and even dealing with the printer again.

Good luck,

-M


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

Marshall summed it up properly. When I was still screenprinting we would mark the platens so that in theory the image would fall in the same place on every shirt but the reality is there is still some small variation. Making it worse is that shirts are not perfect. I have been in your shoes to the extent we had an artist who insisted on watching over us as we printed, why the shop owner agreed to that I'll never know but it was a terrible idea. Eventually he ran her out which created hard feelings all the way around.


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

These are t-shirts we're printing here. We're not building rockets that have to safely convey people to Mars, for cryin' out loud.
Any customer who takes calipers to a shirt to determine variance in print position from shirt to shirt, especially for an entire order of shirts, doesn't need screenprinting done, they need their head examined. These are the customers that you send down the street to your least-liked competitor.
Wildly varying position is one thing, but there are some people who are simply too picky over something that's printed on a substrate that's flexible to begin with, and who aren't worth the trouble to sell to. There are those who will argue over "centering" of an image, which can be done mechanically between the sleeves and neck, or visually pleasing, which comes to play in a design that's heavy on one side and light on the other, where mechanically placing the left-most object the same distance from the left sleeve as the right-most object is from the right sleeve, resulting in a print that "looks" off-center.
If you're going to print for these anal-retentive folks, charge 'em up the wazoo for the aggravation. They'll appreciate it. ;-)
No there are no "printed" standards against which all jobs are judged.


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## buehrle (Jan 14, 2008)

calipers ? really ? that's harsh. anything that is soft and moves will never be the same time after time. something hard like a piece of metal or wood you can cut each exact. each shirt in the same size can vary a little and then loading on the machine will never. good luck with that.


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## kirkmansigns (Jun 22, 2007)

Karen, I've read all the posts here and see that no one gave any numbers for you. As a "standard" printing practice, we always aim for a full front print to start 3 inches below the collar... a standard collar, not a V-neck. A left front print would be 3 inches below the same standard collar with the edge 2 inches off the center line. On the larger sizes we feel it is acceptable to shift the image over another inch or so. Again as everyone has said, there really is not a standard. On a full rear, we aim for the print to start 5 inches below the collar. Every design is different and could shift the print positon slightly. We have one car club logo that has a sythe very high in the design... I'll call this a very bottom heavy layout. We raise their print slightly so it doesn't appear too low on the shirt. Good luck and I hope these general guide lines help.


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## MarStephenson761 (Sep 19, 2011)

Marshall, great detailed and accurate response.. have YOU written that standards guide yet?


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## AtkinsonConsult (May 2, 2011)

Mark:

Yes, of course. 

All client relationships are different but we have guidelines for the defect ratio spelled out on quotes and on our general price list.

On the production side, we use Shopworks and our order entry staff copies and pastes all instructions from the client's PO into the Work Order. The location dimensions are shown on the art approval forms, and a a color copy is printed with the work order. All designs are approved on press by a manager and sometimes an artist too before printing the run.

Prior to printing we have a press "huddle" and review the quantity, placement, design, PMS colors, print order and discuss what potentially could go wrong with the print during production. This gives the catchers a heads up on what to look out for during the production run. We try to be proactive, rather than reactive when it comes to quality control.

That being said, mistakes do sometimes occur. Training your staff on what to do is important. Some mistakes, like a stray ink spot can be corrected using a spray gun. Others, can't and need to go up the chain for resolution...unless there is language about a % defect ratio. Most of our shirts are customer supplied, so we try to determine what we should do in the event of a problem before the job starts.

Thanks,

-M


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