By Hal Armstrong
I often get "I'd like my logo on a shirt." This is the first thought to most small businesses but the logo has six or seven colors in it and it becomes cost prohibitive to print.
Printers, apparel or paper, base costs on the number of printing screens or plates that will be necessary. Many screen printing companies add a "screen charge" of 20 or 30 dollars per screen. For spot printing (typified by solid blocks of color without shading or gradients), a screen must be created and used for each color. Not only this but a screen must be created for each SIZE of print. Thus, a 3 color logo printed fully across and a 3.75" left chest will require 6 screens! With each screen costing $10 to $30, it is easy to see how costs can pile up.
When a design reaches 4 or more colors it is often converted to "CMYK" or "process printing" which is printed using only cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. Any color can be created from these four. A magnifier on a full-color magazine or newspaper print will reveal dots of these basic colors overlapping to form any desired shape. Lower grade prints are achieved by mixing only red, green, and blue. This limits the number of screens or printing plates but not all shops are equipped for this CMYK or process printing. The project is often contracted to a shop that is. Done in-house or contracted out with an appropriate profit margin added on, this type of printing can be expensive and make the project cost prohibitive.
To keep printing costs down, try to design your artwork using as few colors as possible. Sometimes a logo can be done with two colors and have the same impact as three or more. Also, if the substrate, paper or fabric, can be specified to be one of the colors in the design, that color can be a "show-through" thereby eliminating the need for one screen or plate and one print. This alone can reduce costs substantially.
Remember to avoid incorporating photo-realistic designs that will require direct-to-garment inkjet or process printing as these are usually the most expensive types of prints.
When I owned a previous company, I wanted to put my crews (which I felt represented us to our clients) in uniform. How I wish I'd had this advice as the logo I'd designed proved very expensive to print.
Printers, apparel or paper, base costs on the number of printing screens or plates that will be necessary. Many screen printing companies add a "screen charge" of 20 or 30 dollars per screen. For spot printing (typified by solid blocks of color without shading or gradients), a screen must be created and used for each color. Not only this but a screen must be created for each SIZE of print. Thus, a 3 color logo printed fully across and a 3.75" left chest will require 6 screens! With each screen costing $10 to $30, it is easy to see how costs can pile up.
When a design reaches 4 or more colors it is often converted to "CMYK" or "process printing" which is printed using only cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. Any color can be created from these four. A magnifier on a full-color magazine or newspaper print will reveal dots of these basic colors overlapping to form any desired shape. Lower grade prints are achieved by mixing only red, green, and blue. This limits the number of screens or printing plates but not all shops are equipped for this CMYK or process printing. The project is often contracted to a shop that is. Done in-house or contracted out with an appropriate profit margin added on, this type of printing can be expensive and make the project cost prohibitive.
To keep printing costs down, try to design your artwork using as few colors as possible. Sometimes a logo can be done with two colors and have the same impact as three or more. Also, if the substrate, paper or fabric, can be specified to be one of the colors in the design, that color can be a "show-through" thereby eliminating the need for one screen or plate and one print. This alone can reduce costs substantially.
Remember to avoid incorporating photo-realistic designs that will require direct-to-garment inkjet or process printing as these are usually the most expensive types of prints.
When I owned a previous company, I wanted to put my crews (which I felt represented us to our clients) in uniform. How I wish I'd had this advice as the logo I'd designed proved very expensive to print.
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