Business T-Shirts: How To Choose High Quality T-Shirt Prints

As a business owner, you want to ensure that customers or other staff members can easily spot the staff who work for you. 

Sometimes, you may have your staff wear a blank t-shirt of a set color, but this can become complicated, especially if it is a pretty standard color! For many business owners or managers, this can be easily rectified by ensuring that the t-shirts have a pattern on the logo. However, this can cause a secondary complication: How can you ensure that when the t-shirt is printed, the image or text will stay in place for as long as needed?

So, if you are a business owner who wants their staff to stand out, this article is a cheat sheet for you to use! You can scroll through to ensure that your custom piece of clothing for your staff, whether in a shop or working at an event, is high quality. In particular, the article will look at the different customization techniques. Enjoy!

Printing Methods

When looking online for t-shirt printing companies, look at the different kinds of printing they offer for your staff’s t-shirts. 

One of the most popular (and highest quality) t-shirt options that you will find during your search is screen printing Fort Worth. This is, in essence, when an image is converted into a vector design (or a stencil) and is then applied to a screen for the printing phase. For screen printing to be high quality, the inks that are used need to be correctly cured. Over-cured inks tend to crack, and under-cured inks tend to peel. So, be sure to check previous t-shirts that the company has printed using this method. 

Next is direct-to-t-shirt or garment printing. This is often the most cost-effective option, usually accompanied by a digitally created image. Again, the company printing the t-shirt must have high-quality design apps on their computers to ensure the photos do not blur or lose detail when transferred to the t-shirt. If you want a t-shirt printed using this method, which has a darker fabric, you may have to pay extra for additional layers that will need to be applied to the shirt to make the colors or images stick.

Last on the printing list is a t-shirt transfer, which, in essence, works similarly to a transfer tattoo with about the same amount of success! Transfers can be applied to fabric using water or an iron. Don’t be fooled; transfers can be a good option if you need T-shirts made quickly, but they aren’t ideal for staff who need to wear them daily. Simply put, transfers will likely peel off after one or two washes!

Materials

Next, you must examine the fabric materials on which the image or logo will be printed.

If you are going to have your t-shirts screen printed, the best fabric to have the image transferred onto would be one that is made from a breathable fabric, such as cotton. This is a fabric that is naturally stretchy and has great absorption so, its ideal for most kinds of printing. Of course, you can also opt for a t-shirt that is made from polyester, as this is a breathable, absorbent fabric which can create crisp prints. Thus, it is ideal for intricate images or patterns.

If you want wool-based t-shirts due to your staff working at an outside event, you will be glad to hear that screen printing is the optimum solution to get those crisp lines without the image wearing off. 

You should always make sure that when you choose the material for your staff’s T-shirts, you consider the environment they will be working in and factor in their comfort as well as how often they will need to wear the T-shirt. If they are working in a kiosk at a train station on a cold winter day, you may want to think of something thicker rather than a thin, cotton T-shirt!

Color Distribution

How can you assess the printer of your staff t-shirts by looking at their stock or samples? Look for color distribution!

If the image on the T-shirt seems a bit brighter in one part of the T-shirt but not the other, this can point to excessive use of ink during the printing process. Why is that a bad thing? If you are looking for crisp lines with your images or texts, you want the company printing the T-shirts to have a better idea of how much ink they need to use. 

Of course, color distribution can also showcase the quality of the ink used. If an image seems to have a lot of bleeds, it can highlight that the shirt printer should have taken the time to mix the proper thickness of the ink or may have used poorer-quality ink in the printing. 

Another thing to think about when looking through samples from a printing company is the distribution of ink or color off of the fabric. Even if a sample piece looks like it has the perfect transfer of color and gradient, try to touch the print with your fingers or rub it gently with a wet tissue. If any color comes off, that’s a no-no and points to improper printing! When it comes to screen-printed images on t-shirts, in general, they do not have this issue, but in the case of transfers or direct-to-t-shirt printing, you may be more likely to spot this problem. This is why it is always best to look at samples rather than order blindly offline!

Sharpness of Images

This was mentioned earlier, but if you have a logo or a pattern that you want to print, you don’t want it to bleed or run into the surrounding fabrics.

So, when you are on the hunt for high-quality t-shirt prints, make sure to ask the printer for examples of their work that showcase a complex or delicate pattern. Ideally, they will have used screen printing to get the image onto the fabric, but, if they used something quick and easy, such as a digital transfer, then you can almost guarantee that the image of the t-shirt is not going to last very long. 

Inspect the images that have been printed and take a long look at how the print looks when it hits a seam; does it bleed? Does the color fade?  

Look Inside!

Why would you need to look at the inside of a t-shirt that you have printed?

There are a few reasons. For one, the t-shirt is likely sewn on the inside, and, if you are also buying the t-shirts off of the printer, then you will want to see if the fabric is sewn together neatly, and if there are any loose threads. Check that all of the stitches are the same color and that when you pull on a seam, there is no spacing. After all, you don’t want your staff to show off any skin unintentionally!

Also, look at the print(s) on the inside. Have the colors and images seeped through? Or is there a clear patch separating the area from the rest of the t-shirt? Again, you don’t want any inks onto your staff’s skin, and not putting in a protective layer is another issue that you may encounter with t-shirt printers looking to create t-shirts for a low price!

Final Note

So, if you want to opt for a high-quality t-shirt for your staff, check the materials, the printing process, the color, and, of course, the stitches. Also, ensure that if you buy the t-shirts from the printing process provider, they have all the correct sizes for your staff. The last thing you want is to shell out a fortune on customized t-shirts for your staff to wear, only to have half of the t-shirts be too big and the other half be too small. 

You should also avoid buying t-shirts online. Try to visit the t-shirt printers in person to see the products they make and how they print them. Take note of the location; is it clean and well put-together, and are the staff happy? Ensure you are also pleased with the service prices. In other words, shop around, get an idea of how much you want will cost, and, as always, explore lots of different t-shirt printers. Don’t just go with the ones that offer the cheapest T-shirts, as they are unlikely to be suitable for your staff and will probably fall apart and need to be replaced.