Step 1: Create Custom Artwork
Artwork is either downloaded or custom created by our full service art staff. Depending on what you’re looking for, art is then touched up or proofed out for your approval using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and other graphic design programs.

Step 2: Create Films
After the artwork is approved, each design is color separated & printed onto vinyl films. Each color in the design recieves it’s own individual film and each film that’s printed recieves it’s own screen.

Step 3: Screen Preparation
Screens are used in production to transfer ink onto your t-shirt. When screens are prepared they are first constructed and then coated with a light sensitive emulsion that allows the design on film to transfer.

Step 4: Screen Burning
When the screen has dried, it is placed on a vacuum light table with the film. It is then exposed with a 3,000 watt metal halide light. This process physically transfers the custom artwork from the film onto the screen making a stencil of the design.

Step 5: Screen Washout
After exposing the silk screen, it’s washed out carefully to ensure a clean, quality image. This process removes only the emulsion not exposed by the light, leaving behind an open area for ink to run through.

Step 6: Press Set-Up
Each screen is loaded and locked into place on the press. Inks are applied to each screen according to specified color and then test printed to ensure the screens and artwork line up with registration marks.

Step 7: Printing
The most important part of the process. This is where it all happens! After the shirts are brought underneath a screen, a squeegee on top pushes the ink color through the exposed areas of silk screen and onto your t-shirt below.

Step 8: Drying and Curing the Ink
After printing, each printed shirt must be pulled off of the press and placed on a dryer belt where it travels into a heat chamber. This process allows the ink to permanently adhere to the shirt. The ink must reach 325 degrees to properly cure.

Step 9: Inspection and Folding
After all custom shirts are cured, a catcher personally inspects and folds each shirt that passes through the dryer. This ensures us that all printed shirts are correct & have the crisp, quality print set to our production standards.

Step 10: Boxing and Shipping
When folding is completed, all printed t-shirts are prepared for shipping & delivery to you. Each box is carefully counted by hand & then packed with all other printed shirts associated with your order.  Finally, when all shirts are ready to go, the completed order is loaded onto a courier truck and shipped directly to you. No matter where you are on the map, we guarantee fast, reliable delivery to you, always!

First time buying t-shirts?
Follow these 10 easy steps to t-shirt success and everyone who wears one of your shirts will be happier.
Step 1: Pick a design
Sounds easy but it is the hardest part, especially if a group is involved. Pick out 3-5 designs in your budget and print them out to present to your group. You can also email links to the design web pages or post them on facebook. Designs can also be customized using our design tool, it takes a bit longer but they can better see what the deign will look like. You can email the links to the custom designs and people can jumpstart of your design to further customize or show a variation.

Step 2: Pick a garment
Once you have a design, pick out a garment. When selecting colors, be sure to check about the sizes available as not all garments come in all sizes and colors. For example, our most popular t-shirt, the Gildan 100% cotton t-shirt comes in over 40 colors but only about 25% of the colors range from youth small to adult 5X.

Step 3: Get the price quote
Before your group will buy shirts, they’ll want to know how much they cost! The best way is is estimate how many shirts you’ll sell on the low side then get our price from the web site. Round it up to the next dollar or two to get the selling price for your group. The extra money will be used to stock up some extra shirts.

Step 4: Decide to buy the shirts
The committee is happy with the design and the price, you’re happy about how easy it has been so far, now it’s time to get to work!

Step 5: Get the sizes
We suggest that you use our sizing kit if you can get everyone together. If not, survey everyone and get their shirt size. Since sizes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, be sure to use a chart to get the right size. When it doubt, guess a size larger.

Step 6: Collect the money up front
The perfect time to get the payment is while you are getting the sizes.

Step 7: Set a deadline
Set a deadline when everyone needs to have their sizes and money to you.  Set this deadline 3 days prior to placing the actual order in the event of a last minute order.

Step 8: Order the shirts
Total up all your orders, get an extra or two in each size (except the smaller sizes) and place the order.

Step 9: Check in the shirts
When you receive the shirts, go though the box and count them. To make it extra easy, bag and label each person’s order.

Step 10: Distribute the shirts
Take pictures of your group in your new t-shirts, send us a photo, tag it on facebook.  Enjoy them.

Medline

Medline Industries and Envision Sports Designs teamed up for several fundraisers in 2010 fundraising well over $10,000 for various charities.  Medline takes corporate identity branding over the top with custom t-shirts for various events, fundraisers, holidays and sports teams.

Pleasant Valley LEGO League Robotics Team advanced to State!

Resolution – Resolution is the number of pixels or dots used to represent a raster image. Resolution is described in PPI (pixels per inch) or DPI (dots per inch). Low-resolution images (web page or some digital pictures) are usually 72 ppi or less and are usually useless for screen-printing. High-resolution images may be as high as 600 ppi. We recommend an Adobe Photoshop® Document (.psd) at 100% of final print size with a resolution of at least 300 ppi for our purposes.

CMYK – (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) are print process colors. This means that they are made up of the inks that all printers use for color printing. They are not a special color that would cost more. They are also the colors of a standard office color printer.

Halftone – Halftones are a pattern of tiny dots that can simulate different shades of color using varying percentages of a single ink. Visually, halftones create the illusion of a continuous tone image by using spots of varying size and density to represent the darker or lighter color values. Halftones can be used for screen-printing to create a tint or lighter shade of color. This will allow more colors in the design without adding more screens. When creating a gradient, halftones create the appearance of continuous tone of color. Halftones are also used to create overlapping screens of different ink colors that combine to simulate more colors. For our purposes, we use 28 – 65 line screens.

Underbase – An underbase is a layer of ink, usually white, that is printed under the other ink colors when printing on dark garments. When printing most colors on dark garments, the color of the shirt will show through the ink slightly. To prevent this, the thin, white underbase is printed, and then flash dried for the following colors to print on top. The underbase provides a good neutral base and reduces or eliminates the shirt color showing through.

Flash – Flash curing is the process of gelling a layer of ink with a spot heating unit while still on the press. To gel the ink layer, the temperature is raised to the point where the ink begins to dry but is not completely cured. The ink will feel dry to the touch and form a solid surface to print additional colors on. After the garment has run through the dryer, the flashed layer will cure completely and bond to the ink layers on top to form a solid print.

Embroidery Digitizing – Digitizing is the process of converting the customer’s artwork or digital design into stitches that are stored in a computer file read by the embroidery machine’s computer.