Band Artwork question (printing logo)

[Kenny Everett]

Ok, novice here so bear with me!

We're doing a show in a few weeks where the organisers are producing a t-shirt with the name of the event and all the band logos on it. They've asked me if I want to submit my own artwork. Is there an industry standard in terms of image size/ resolution etc that I should be aware of? What i was going to do was just pick a nice font and do it from there, just plain text for this purpose.

What do the experts think?

[Boydy]

There is but im not sure for tshirt printing, I'll find out ... post results here 2mro

[Kenny Everett]

I'm currently mired in font sites trying to get something cool to start using on our promotional bumph, so i'll post that up as soon as I decide !

[Kenny]

From the various bits of things I've had printed... not really. Different places accept different file formats. Really the only thing that seems to be consistent is that you'll need to make sure it's at least 300 dpi. And obviously avoid using compressed formats like jpeg, etc.

[Kenny Everett]

Cool, what format is ideal?

[djtoast]

TIFF or EPS is best.

TIFFs are ideal if it's an image (like, a photograph). If it's just text or a line drawing, and it's made in a POSTSCRIPT aware application (Quark, Illustrator, etc) then an EPS will be the preferred format for smooth, crisp results.

Most likely you'll be looking at making it a TIFF image though.

Also, worth spelling out that a TIFF's gotta be 300dpi AT THE SIZE IT WILL PRINT.

ie, don't make a file that is 5cm wide at 300dpi if it's gonna be printed 25cm wide.

[Kenny Everett]

Arrrgh, TIFF

Can I save whatever I do to this format in photoshop? It's just a line of text I'm using for this project, no pics.

[djtoast]

Yup. Make the Photoshop file the size you want it to print (make sure you set the resolution to pixels per inch, not cm), and make it CMYK not RGB if it's more than one colour. (If it's just one colour, another option is to make the file Grayscale, type the text in black and just tell printer what colour you want it to be. That has the potential to be either much more or much less accurate )

When you save the file save it with NO compression (although LZW is lossless this'll just make the file more versatile in case the printer has some crazy way of doing things) and save it with PC byte order (a printer should be able to open a MAC format file but you never know with T-shirt people).

[Kenny Everett]

Sounds good. I just want to cover myself for all situations, the people that are making the shirts up have just asked me for our logo so I want to make sure it turns out ok