Tricks & Tips

All t-shirt suppliers use this code when describing their different garment options, and you might have been wondering, what is GSM? We thought we might go through that for you to help clarify this term.

GSM stands for Grams per Square Metre – so it’s referring to the weight of the fabric. However, a lot of people often form the opinion that lightweight fabric equals poor quality and heavyweight fabric equals good quality…..this is not always the case!

In fact, a lot of t-shirt suppliers who have lightweight t-shirts available actually charge more for this option.

So what does equal quality?

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Besides providing highly amusing free entertainment, people-watching can be a great source of inspiration for all creatives and business people.  For example, let’s take a look at some tactics T-shirt designers might use to get creative inspiration from people-watching.

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At the age of 69, Toby is a fit and energetic man who’s still heavily involved in the daily operations of his industrial plumbing business.  He calls himself a realist, and he has a self-professed distrust of advertising.  He won’t watch commercial television or listen to commercial radio, and if he spends time on the internet, his wife closes the door on him to muffle the sound of his non-stop grumbling about marketers being brainwashers.

Toby’s not unusual.  People want information, but they want it at their own convenience – more often than not, they’ll hang up on telemarketers, delete spam emails, mute the TV when commercials are on, and pointedly ignore billboards while driving.  It can be really hard for a business to make potential customers aware that it even exists, when so many of those people are determined to close their eyes, block their ears and sing “blah-de-blah-de-blah-blah, I can’t hear you!”  The money you pour into advertising can easily disappear straight down the drain, resulting in very little, if any, return to you at all.

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Imagine the number of T-shirt designs a screen printer sees in the course of a year – hundreds, if not thousands.  And with all that experience of the t-shirt design industry, just imagine the wealth of knowledge and advice we would be able to offer a new designer!

In ‘Designers’ Guide to the Apparel Printing Industry’, Adam Wagner of GoMediaZine shares some wonderful insights and tips from his interviews with representatives from five major US apparel printers, covering topics such as design trends, file preparation, printing techniques and complex designs.

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We regularly have people asking us how they get their hand drawn designs into a format that can be used for t-shirt printing. Here is a quick video showing you the basics. (more…)

A two part guide to starting your own T shirt label. Part 2, Sourcing and Printing.

By now you should know your market and have developed a suitable image and label for your T shirt printing business. Now it’s time to move on to sourcing your t-shirts and choosing a printing method which does your designs justice.
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Found this great video interviewing a guy getting his thoughts on the basics of t-shirt design.

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A two part guide to starting your own T shirt label. Part 1, Market Research, Design and Label.

So you want to start a T shirt fashion label? This could be part of an endeavour to sell your own t-shirt designs or to provide a custom T shirt printing service for customers. Whatever your business plans, the first step to success is market research. (more…)

If you need t-shirts printed, you’ve come to the right place! PSI wants to align its results to your vision of the perfect screen printed t-shirt for your needs, so let us help you convey your ideas. Before you jump in though there are a few things to know to make sure you get the results you want. Here are just a few steps to consider…

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Creating unique and fitting designs for printing to t shirts can be quite different from the usual print design fare. The surface you plan to display your print on and the materials and method you chose to create the print both add physical limits to what is possible. Remember you are now dealing with screen printing inks and fabric! While a design might look great on paper the process of screen printing can result in wildly varying quality and color. (more…)