Custom T-Shirt Design & Art Guidelines
The most important part of the entire print process is having the proper artwork to work with. No matter which method of printing you choose, it all starts on the computer with clean artwork. Below you’ll find the guidelines and requirements for all your custom shirt and apparel art files.
Good Artwork = Good Shirts
Screen Printing
Screen printing is a spot color process. Each color in a design is individually printed one at a time through it’s own stencil (the screen). All the custom t-shirt designs and other apparel designs for a screen printer must be separated by color ensure your graphic prints correctly. For optimal results we require Vectored artwork separated by color for your custom t-shirt design or other screen printed items.
Type | Color Separated | Size | Formats | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Optimal Results | Vector File | Yes | Any | .pdf, .ai, .eps, |
Also Acceptable | Rasterized | Yes | 300 DPI “Life Size” in Inches | .pdf, .psd, .jpg, .gif, .tiff |
Please Note – When submitting Adobe Illustrator files please create outlines of all text elements.
( you can do this by selecting the text, go to “Type”>”Create Outlines” )

Embroidery
Embroidery files are digitized with a highly sensitive computer program that matches the custom shirt & apparel artwork to thread colors as carefully as possible.
Note – Very small 1px details may not translate as well as thicker lines.
Type | Color Separated | Size | Formats |
---|---|---|---|
CMYK Rasterized or Vectored | No | 150 DPI or greater “Life Size” in Inches | .pdf, .psd, .ai, .eps, .jpg, .pdf, .tiff, .gif, .tiff |

Need your artwork separated?
Artwork Submission
Please submit all artwork by email directly to your emulsion representative,
or feel free to submit through our free quote form Here

What size should my graphic be?
The reference image to the left shows a standard custom t-shirt design (Anvil 980) Medium sized T-Shirt with various print sizes in inches. Below is a list of standard custom t-shirt design sizes (by width):
- Basic Front Chest = 10″
- Full Front Chest = 12″
- Front Left Chest = 3.5″
- Ladies Front Chest = 9.75″
- Basic Back Shoulder = 10″
- Full Back Shoulder = 12″
- Sleeve Print = 3″
- Inside Tag (relabel) = 2″