Starting A T-Shirt Business, Help With Screenprinting Process?

[The Equivocate]

I've already had some moderate success selling my designs through Zazzle.com (kind of like CafePress), and started up a MySpace at www.myspace.com/effyxx because that's the crowd I'm going for (grunge).

However I don't want to have to do it through Zazzle, I want to get shirts myself and have someone do the whole screenprint/silkscreen process, and then personally set up a shop online and sell them.

Has anyone dealt with screenprinting and has any words of caution or advice? I already know the shirts I'd want to buy - American Apparel - which are a little more expensive than normal shirts that you can get for like $2, but that's the way I want to go.

I've already done my designs in 300 dpi but someone mentioned that it has to be in layers, with black on the bottom or something, so they can properly lay the colors down? Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[sjaguar13]

I run a screen printing business. Each color is on a seperate screen. The image needs to be in layers so that each screen can be made of just that layer. The order of the colors in the layers does not really matter. Once the screens are made, the colors will be laid down right. Actually, it's the lightest color first and black last.

Depending on who you are going to have screen print the shirts (unless you plan on doing it), you might not have to even do the color seperation. We take any image and do all the prep work for the image ourself. I know other screen printers who require print-ready art.

Basically, it comes down to who is going to print the shirts. I know some shops want the image with the 300 dpi and a set width/height. For us, we take anything, convert it to vector, do the layer seperation, and then make the screens.

 

[Ronald Regging]

I think the best approach to this type of thing is to call a few local screenprinting shops, tell them you know nothing about screenprinting and you want to know exactly what they require to print tshirts. Thats usually the best way to go in my experience. They want your business and they should be more than happy to take the time to explain their requirements. Make sure you shop around though.

Once you start making the big bucks, you can hire people to pick cotton, turn it into shirts, screen print them, fill orders and ship them to your customers