Artwork
What we need from your artwork
Most delays on a print job are not the printing. They are the back-and-forth about the file. Here is exactly what to send, what to avoid, and the one mistake nearly every customer makes without realising it.
The short version
- Vector for screen printing — .ai, .eps, .pdf or .svg
- PNG with a real transparent background for DTG
- Big enough to print at full size, not a thumbnail
- The artwork on its own, nothing else in the file
- Fonts outlined, or tell us which font you used
- A mockup — a picture of the design already on a shirt
- A screenshot, or a photo of a printed shirt
- Art pasted inside a Word doc or a PDF flyer
- A logo sitting on a white square you meant to remove
- Anything pulled off a website at screen size
The mockup mistake
This is the one that catches nearly everybody, and it is worth explaining properly because it costs quality rather than time.
A mockup is a picture of your design already placed on a shirt — the thing a designer sends you to show what it will look like. It is a photograph or render of the finished product. It is not the artwork.
When a mockup arrives instead of the file, we have to cut the design back out of the picture. What we end up with is a lower quality copy of something you already had in better condition somewhere else. The edges are softer, the colours have shifted where the shirt fabric showed through, and any fine detail is gone.
Send the logo, not the shirt. If a designer made your mockup, they have the real file. Ask them for it — the phrase you want is "the print-ready vector" or "the source files". It takes them ten seconds and it saves your print.
Why screen printing wants vector
Screen printing puts each colour on its own screen. To make those screens, every colour has to be separated cleanly from the others.
Vector artwork is built from shapes and maths rather than pixels, so each colour is already a distinct object, and the file stays razor sharp whether it is printed at three inches or thirty. That is why printers ask for it, and it is not fussiness — a raster file has to be traced by hand before it can be separated at all.
How to tell what you have
- Vector — .ai, .eps, .svg, or a .pdf that was saved from design software. Zoom right in and the edges stay perfectly crisp.
- Raster — .jpg, .png, .gif, .heic, or a screenshot. Zoom in and you eventually see the individual pixels.
Only have raster? That is not a dead end. We redraw artwork as vector regularly. Which brings us to the money question.
What it costs
Plainly, because this is where people expect a surprise and there is not one:
- There is no setup fee on printing. Not for screens, not for anything. The screen cost is already inside the per-piece price, which is why the per-shirt figure drops so sharply as quantity rises.
- An artwork fee applies only if you don’t have the source files. Bring the print-ready vector and there is no fee at all. If we have to redraw or convert it, that is real work and it is charged for — and we tell you the amount before anything runs.
This is why AI-generated designs nearly always attract the fee: an AI image is pixels, not a source file, so it needs converting before it can print.
Embroidery has one extra step, and it is a separate charge. A logo has to be digitized — turned into a stitch file the machine can sew. That is $45, the same for a small or a large design, and you pay it once. Reorder the same design on the same item and there is no digitizing fee again.
It only comes back if the design goes on a different item — shirts, hats and beanies all stitch differently — or if you want it bigger. Details in how embroidery pricing works.
Size: the thing nobody checks
For DTG, artwork wants to be around 300 DPI at the size it will actually print. A full front print is usually eleven or twelve inches wide, so that means roughly 3,300 to 3,600 pixels across.
A logo pulled off a website is typically 400 to 800 pixels. It looks perfect on the screen you pulled it from and turns soft the moment it is blown up to shirt size. If the only copy you can find is the one on your own website, that is a sign the real file is sitting with whoever built the site.
The background problem
Whatever is in the file gets printed. That sounds obvious until a logo arrives sitting on a white square that the customer had stopped seeing.
On a white shirt you would never notice. On a black one you get your logo inside a white box. A genuinely transparent PNG shows a grey and white checkerboard behind the art in a preview window. Plain white behind it means the white is part of the image.
Would you like us to check your file before you commit to anything? Send it over and we will tell you in plain English what it is and what it needs — the link is at the bottom of this page.
Price your job while you are here
Artwork aside, the price comes down to the garment, the quantity and the colours. Would you like to find out your price without the hassle of a phone call or email? The calculator below is the same one that runs on our quote page, using the same price list.
Common questions
What file format do you need for screen printing?
Vector — .ai, .eps, .pdf or .svg. If you only have a JPG or PNG we can redraw it, and we tell you before anything runs.
What is a mockup and why shouldn’t I send one?
It is a picture of your design already on a shirt. Sending one means we have to cut the artwork back out of a photograph, and you end up with a worse copy of a file you already had. Send the artwork on its own.
Do you charge an artwork fee?
No setup fee at all. An artwork fee applies only if you don’t have the source files. Send a print-ready vector and there is no fee.
Can you get the file from my designer?
Usually the fastest route is you asking them for “the print-ready vector” or “the source files”. If they send it straight to us that works too.
What if I have no artwork at all?
Tell us what you want and we will work it out with you. Plenty of jobs start as a description and a rough idea.
Want the next one?
We publish one of these a week — real numbers off our own price list, no fluff. Would you like to know when the next one goes up? Leave your email and we’ll tell you.
Just new posts. No sales blasts, and you can tell us to stop any time.
Not sure what you’ve got? Send it over
We will open the file and tell you straight: what it is, whether it will print, and what it needs if it will not — before anything runs and before you have paid for it. Black-owned and veteran-owned, in Capitol Heights since 2016.
Would you like to know your file is right before you commit to a whole run? Click below.
Send your artwork for a quote (202) 643-7805