‘Not only are standard polyurethane/polyester boards made from petrochemicals, but the production of them releases incredibly harmful chemicals into the environment. Put this with their typical lifespan and it is clear that there is definite room for improvement on how boards are made.‘

It looks like the James Otter approach to this problem has been without compromise in all repects, the finished boards look amazing and have now been thoroughly tested on our Cornish coastline. In addition to producing an incredible product there is (at the time of writing) an invitation to the customer to be a part of the creation process. In my opinion it would be well worth making the most of this opportunity.

I would like to think that one day I might get to own one myself, although this would require finding the time to use it, getting back in the water again is high on the agenda but screen printing, right now, seems to be taking up every waking moment. Speaking of which the T shirts….

An obvious choice, Earth positive Organic T shirts screen printed using water based inks. Only the best for Otter Surfboards.

As far as Advertees is concerned we always take the position of promoting the best organic T shirts, and the most environmentally friendly options for screen printing T shirts. Unfortunately many of our customers are not able to justify the extra cost for a variety of  legitimate reasons, and we totally understand that for 90% of our customer base an organic, fairly traded product is simply not within budget. For similar real world reasons we are unable to offer a ‘certified’ organic product as the expense of eliminating the possibility of cross contamination (fibres and dust from none organic T shirts) is simply not an option presently.

So it is refreshing to find a company that does not compromise (as we do) and requests a product to match their own in terms of sustainability.

Neals Yard remedies offer a range of  ‘organic natural health and beauty products‘ . This phrase is very familiar, the cynical among us, and those people who are are little weary of green washing, may be doubting this claim as they read it.  But in this instance we (Advertees) are assured by the sincerity of a company who are willing to spend a little more on promotion and merchandising because of a genuine belief in sustainability over cost. Neals Yard Remedies use the following  phrase ‘This passion, and our firm belief that it’s down to all of us to protect our precious planet, is at the heart of everything we do’  and in our experience this has proved to be true.

The T shirts supplied for this job were from earth positive, the water based inks used to print this design were supplied by grafco. It was printed at 85LPI using newman screens and a mesh, the inks used were supplied by screening west a UK supplier of grafco inks.

Although not certified, Advertees can supply T shirts printed to the highest environmental standards, it is our policy to advise clients that screen printing on to dark coloured T shirts is not, in our experience, an environmentally friendly option, despite the claims of some organically certified T shirt printers. Advertees does provide a quality non formaldehyde water based discharge printing solution, but we prefer to reinforce the following. Printing on light coloured T shirts in water based inks has far less environmental impact!

More accurate placement of artwork on screens also allows for more control of halftones, high mesh tensions allow for finer meshes when printing water based inks, these two things combined have allowed us to produce screens extremely quickly, with very predictable results. We are never left trying to compensate for screen errors on press, our T-shirt printers are now faster, and much happier. The times where these improvements really make themselves known are on repeat orders where retensionable frames were not in use, this 3 colour water based discharge print previously had to be registered by eye, and then, after the first print, adjustments were made with great haste for fear of ink drying in the screen. Once up and running many adjustments were made to print and flood speeds to compensate for dot gain, or not enough ink down. This week we put the screens in their predetermined positions filled them with ink and printed a test print which was spot on registration. The job was then printed with zero fine tuning of print flood speeds. A retensionable frame removes so much frustration on press (especially when working with water based inks in the summer) that the time required to maintain them is more than worth while.

This print was produced for The Alarm who are presently touring the UK.

The more use we make of water-based inks, the more we realise some of the benefits offered from a production point of view. In the first 2 months of 2010 we have seen significant growth in customer enquiries specific to water based inks (and surprisingly further enquiries from fellow screen printers) .

This is an incredibly positive start to the year, even to leave the environmental benefits out of the equation, screen printing with these products sees added customer satisfaction and a very high rate of return custom. Many of the prominent online T shirt printers have now stated they offer this service, lets hope this continued growth in interest and use of water based inks will lead to faster product development, and availability.

Prior to this design we had never attempted a 6 colour simulated process using water based discharge printing, a job like this can present so many problems (colour is especially difficult to control), but when it works the final result cannot be compared to any other method of getting designs on to a Tshirt. The result is a fully ironable, breathable print. The earthy tones which are an inherent part of discharge prints, match this particular design perfectly.

The newly installed TAS dealt with this job brilliantly. We are already starting to wonder how we managed pre TAS. This job was run without flash cures, so an incredibly quick print run and a good energy saving. Newman screens also played a very important part of getting this job done without any hiccups.

Enochian Theory are now on their way to the Prog Power festival in Holland, with some UK shows on their return. Be sure to check out the bands web site, and myspace pages. There is also some great you tube footage. We like them a lot, a full 10 out of 10 from us. If you want to support this hard working band, buy their album, and if you like what you hear why not get the T shirt too.

May has been a very busy month for us, this blog has only seen one post at the beginning of this month, as printing T shirts has been required from waking to sleeping. Our new gas dryer has been a very worth while investment, with more jobs  being printed using water based at a much faster rate.

An increase in our output has been matched by demand, water based printing jobs are up, the non Formaldehyde discharge has been very well received by customers. What is down is blog posts, so a little more effort will be made in the next couple of months to publish something informative and helpful about T shirt printing, suggestions of topics are welcome.

And as we ran around busy as can be, the chickens relaxed, and while our backs were turned the Fox payed a visit! Seven of the Advertees chickens were killed, new fencing has been erected and a new member of the Advertees team ( a Jack Russell ) has been given the job of patrolling it. Pecking orders have been re-established and things are slowly returning to normal in the chicken house.

Every now and then we come across T-shirt prints which have all the qualities we like, water-based printing is a must, good design for screen print is another plus.

T shirts which are organic, or at least sweat shop free are always good. The T shirts featured tick all these boxes, a promotion for a UK tour of, The Present, a new Thomas Campbell film. The follow up to surf films Sprout, and The Seedling  covers West Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Sumatra, Java, Hawaii and California. For more information about the film and the venues visit thesurfscreen.com.

Looking at the featured surfers and locations this is probably going to be another classic, we can’t wait to see it.

The tour dates and venues are:

* Wednesday 22nd April  The Royal Cinema, St Ives
* Saturday 25th April The Sallis Beeney Theatre, Brighton
* Friday 1st May  The Carnmarth Hotel, Newquay
* Saturday 2nd May Woodlane Theatre, Falmouth
* Saturday 9th May The Lighthouse Centre, Poole
* Sunday 10th May The Cube Cinema, Bristol
* Saturday 16th May Braunton Village Hall, Braunton
* Sunday 17th May  The Reel Cinema, Kingsbridge
* Saturday 23rd May St Merryn Village Hall, St Merryn

This T shirt design by Murkin uses 6 colours and is printed at our maximum proportions of 14×16. We prefer to print slightly under these dimensions especially when using half tones, but will make exceptions when customers are not in a hurry. This print was post old dryer and pre gas dryer, as a result it had to be printed using pthalate free plastisols rather than water based inks. This is our first multicolour job on Newman frames, a rather long set up time made clear the need to organise a pin reg system as soon as posible.

Update 2011: Advertees now print 16″x20″ or 40×50 cm prints, print quality and set up times have been improved no end with the introduction of newman screens.

More metallic inks are added to the our range, we are currently experimenting with new binders and pastes from Grafco. Such was the response to our new gold ink solutions, we are now taking a look at copper and aluminium pastes. Straight out of the pot they look great and we look forward to incorporating them into designs. New water based binders are available too which should enable us to achieve subtle differences in the final result. All we need now is a little time for research and development, the new year has started well and some experiments may to be put on hold as we only have a couple of months before we enter the T shirt printing season.

Now classed as a retro look, fluorescent T Shirt Printing is synonymous with the 80′s. It is not a regular customer request, but now and again it crops up. The key to a good quality fluoro prints is underbasing, the pigments are not very opaque and a good white background is essential. For the T shirt print in the above image we put down 2 whites before printing the fluorescent green and magenta, the colours consist of an opaque water based binder with 10% pigment. Good quality pigments are always advisable.

Cromatex 2000 is made by Grafco and supplied by Screening West

This job was printed on organic T shirts from Okarma, and printed using water based products. Geeks in the basement was produced for a competition winner and will be flown out to Oz! So although these T shirts are printed using environmentally sound methods, the air miles clocked up by them will make a nonsense of it. First and last time we ship this far I am sure.

We get artwork in a whole variety of forms from finalised vector graphics to a quick sketch on a shopping list.
For this demonstration, I will use a sketch of Woody Allen put together in photoshop.

To start with, this has a wide variety of textures and is fairly colourful. The idea here, is to produce a stark, single colour print. Woody’s going to need simplifying and that means combining all the tonal areas into black.

One way is to adjust the levels (image/adjustments/levels), another way – and the one I have used here – is simply to pull the contrast up and the brightness down. When you’re happy, save the file.
For screening simple graphics like this, as with so many other things, vector is best. Vectorising a piece of bitmap artwork will give it ultra crisp lines instead of the blocky edges we associate with bitmaps.
Open up illustrator or another vector program, and take the image into it.
You can draw over the sketch using the pencil tool. This way, you can do some cleaning up of the lines as you go.
However, if it’s speed you’re after, you should always try vector tracing first. As well as, usually, making a very good job of it, tracing often introduces interesting and useful effects of it’s own.

Here we have the bitmap sketch (on the left) and a quick trace using the default live trace setting in illustrator.
Even at this size, you can see how a lot of the messiness has been cleaned up by the simplifying action of a vector trace.

If we go in closer, the difference in line edge clarity is obvious. This will print nice and cleanly.

It could well be argued though, that some of Woody’s character is lost – look particularly around the mouth where the shadow has become decidedly angular.
Here’s where the tracing variables can help.

This time, I’ve gone into the options and taken the path fitting down to 1 pixel. This gives a trace with a much higher fidelity to the original image. Too far in this direction, however, can result in the actual bitmap pixels being traced! If the original is of a low resolution this can happen, and will result in something which is still rough looking. You should make sure that your original image is of a good resolution to start with if possible.

Another setting which can make all the difference is blur. Using this tool can turn ragged lines into smooth, flowing ones which tend to look quite organic. For simple shapes particularly of an abstract nature, curlicues and the sort of floral patterns commonly seen in artwork today, this might be just the job. Also the blurring of a trace can impart a ‘glossiness’, or sort of plastic sheen etc. Depends what you have in mind.

Here’s Woody again with the blur turned up to 4 px. It’s often a trade-off, trial and error, but again, the higher quality the original artwork the better.

However, we have to try and work with what we receive and often all we have is a low quality piece of artwork. Tracing does not always work. Under these circumstances, we have to re-draw, and a drawing tablet, such as a Wacom can work wonders – so much easier than using the old mouse.

The most simple T shirt designs are often the most effective, I love Kernow T shirts are a good example of this. A timeless design that utilises White T shirts, simple printing in two colours, with a clear message. Easy.

Waterbased t shirt printing by Advertees

A pique knit polo can present problems on very detailed prints, to fill the holes in the weave with ink and maintain good edges is tricky. We find, as ever, that water based inks are a good solution. The very nature of water based ink allows for both an even and opaque print, without losing the edges. A plastisol ink has a tendency to sit on top of the fibres of the shirt, there is no absorbtion of the ink and as a result the plastisol may want to spread out when trying to fill the holes in the knit. This can result in very tiny details filling in entirely, below and above is a close up view of water based printing of a detailed design, its ability to cling to and shrink around fibres makes a big difference in retaining all detail.

This T shirt design from Chris Lanyon speaks for itself. A four colour screen print using opaque waterbased inks from Grafco. The colour came up good and bright, but we think we could have put more ink down with a coarser screen mesh.

Making money go further is likely to become a necessity in the very near future for many businesses, but promotion of your business can not stop, it is an essential part of any company who wish to maintain growth, so how can we save money on a promotional T-shirt run. Here are a few tips on saving money when ordering promotional wear.

• Use a white T shirt. White T shirts are cheaper, they are also easier and quicker to print than coloured T shirts. To achieve bright coloured prints on Black T shirts a white underbase is required adding to your set up costs. White T shirts can be printed in vivid colour and make use of water based inks at no extra cost, water based ink is ideal for large print areas as it is soft to touch and can be ironed, large designs do not cost extra.
• Keep the design simple, every colour in your design adds to the cost of production, one or two colour designs are the most effective and memorable, it could be worth your while investing in a good logo design, it may save money in the long term, the extra costs of reproducing a complex design on vehicles and signage are worth considering.
• The number of print positions on a shirt. This is where you can easily double the cost of your promotional Tshirts. Do you really need to print the sleeves and the more popular than ever web address on the hem of the t shirt? A front and back print is more than enough to get your message across, and a strong brand should be found easily on the web if promoted correctly.
• Take a good look around at whats on offer, get a full breakdown of prices, screen printers have a bit of a reputation for forgetting to mention additional charges such as screens and artwork. Many screen printers have good offers on larger print runs especially on white T shirts, we always have them in stock and they present no print production problems.

Remember, single colour large T shirt graphics can be extremely effective, katharine Hamnett is testament to this. We always give the first screen free of charge on orders of more than 10 shirts, so even a short run of T shirts does not need to break the bank. Cheap T shirt printing does not have to mean poor quality T shirt printing, less can be more, good design is key.

To acheive an all over T shirt print, a particular kind of screen printing machine is required. Belt printers are capable of this kind of printing and can produce great results, But For many people this kind of printing is not affordable with very high minimum orders , one possible way around this is to enter competitions run by design by humans on a regular basis, their website is packed full of some of the most inspirational T shirt designs you can imagine, there are hundreds of fantastic examples of all over T shirt printing on this site.
Unfortunately Advertees do not have this facility at present, with nearly all large format and all over belt printing machines being operated overseas, but it is certainly something we can aspire to. Right now we are able to offer large printing areas of 40cm x 50cm, but we do prefer to avoid seams where possible. Waterbased inks are recommended for large T-shirt designs, discharge printing inks are generally used for dark shirts. Below is a picture of some larger T shirt prints going through our gas dryer.

It does not often happen, we think we have printed T shirts for nearly every kind of club or sport imaginable over the course of 30 years, but this week saw our first print run of cheerleading T Shirts. A quick look around the net reveals a thriving cheerleading scene within the UK, with a UK cheerleading website keeping us up to speed on events, competitions and courses.

Odyssey Overland are embarking on another epic journey to Darwin from London in the Spring of 2009. It looks like the trip of a lifetime if you have 26 weeks to spare.
Pete Deverson has many years experience in organising these trips, and you are assured a trip few people would ever experience in their lifetime, taking in more than 20 countries, from some of the worlds most remote places to some of its ancient treasures, simply too much to list here. Take a look at of the amazing images on the overland odyssey web site for a taste of what is on offer.

Meanwhile we at Advertees have to make do with providing some Promotional T-shirts for the lucky few.

As a fundraising idea for schools direct to garment printed T shirts are never going to compete with the fundraising tea towel, especially in the current climate, parents will not appreciate being asked to fork out for a more expensive item. But we have had requests and some orders, as pictured above. Childrens drawings always benefit from a little boost in colour and contrast before printing, scanning the images does not have to be too time consuming if done at a sensible resolution. For now though, we plod on with the old favourite. The tea towel is still the most effective school fundraiser available with demand growing every year.

Glow in the dark ink is a combination of a pigment (looking like a strange planet in the picture above) and a binder, either plastic or water-based binders can be used. For the best results the ink needs to be printed through a coarse mesh to allow the large phosphorescent particles to pass through the screen. It is also advisable to put down a very good white base as an under-print.

This T shirt design by Simon Allan makes great use of this technique.

You can purchase the angler fish T shirt from Nogunarmy.com plus many more excellent designs.

T shirt printing special effects