subject: Samoan T-Shirt [print this page] Samoan T-Shirt Samoan T-Shirt
The new t-shirts designs by lotonuu.com has brought a new exciting new look into the island tees industry where the old methods of printing are still very much in existence. Not to say that the local artists in this profession has not improved in the last decade, but the transfer between the original artwork and the final piece has always been somewhat a challenge.
Armed with the latest of softwares available to graphic artists, lotonuu is setting the par for graphics designs for its regions counterparts to follow. With this advantage, designs which normally takes hours to prepare can literally be done in minutes. For years, any progress in designs for fabric printing has been limited by the designs compatibility with the method in which to apply it to the fabric. For most, the methods are as follows;
Screening Printing - Creating screens pressed up against cloth to place paint onto shirts one color per screen. Pros: cost effective, high quality, professional, durability. Cons: each color requires a separate screen, messy, need to print many shirts at once with the same design to be feasible.
Heat Press Transfers - Print transparent inks using a computer onto a special piece of paper. Use heat to adhere the ink and paper onto the cloth. Pros: easy to print multi colors and complex designs, does not require different colors to be applied separately, great for small orders, easily customize different shirts. Cons: heavy feel of transfer, the cloth is the brightest part of the design: works well on white shirts, but doesn't work on dark shirts, cracks, fades away easily.
Vinyl Cutters - Use a machine to cut out designs on special solid color sheets of vinyl. Use heat to adhere cut vinyl to adhere vinyl to paper. Pros: high quality, durability, easily customize different shirts, great for small orders. Cons: have to separate and cut out each color independently, doesn't work well for designs with complex patterns or designs that show a lot of background of the shirt inside the design.
Direct to Garment - Print inks directly onto cloth. Pros: reduces steps, patterns doesn't have heavy feel like screen printing, great for small orders, easily customize different shirts. Cons: the cloth is the brightest part of the design: works well on white shirts. There is more of a challenge to theDTGoperator to get dark prints to come out correctly, but it can be done.
Lotonuu's Samoan T-shirts uses the screen printing method as its the most economical of the methods and the end product can easily match prints done by the most expensive printers in the business if done correctly.
What lotonuu.com is doing differently With the use of Corel and Photoshop, lotonuu made giant steps in preparing the screen. They mastered ways to create effects such as gradients and color saturation variations even when using a single screen.
Such skills has been available for years but only to those who can afford these softwares and proper training in operating them. Expect some more improved graphics on Samoa's local tees done by Lotonuu as the designs will no longer be limited to screen friendly graphics. See more of their work at samoantshirts.com
