A T shirt was named for the simple fact that when you lay it on flat surface it forms the shape of a T.
A T shirt (or t shirt) is a shirt which is pulled on over the head to cover most of a person's torso. A T-shirt is usually buttonless, collarless, and pocketless, with a round neck and short sleeves. Another style of t-shirt or tshirts have v-necks as well. ( A v-shape going around the neck, instead of your most common shirt which goes with around neck. ) The sleeves of the T-shirt extend at least slightly over the shoulder but not completely over the elbow (in short-sleeve version). A shirt that is either longer or shorter than this ceases to be a T-shirt. T-shirts are typically made of cotton or polyester fibers (or a mix of the two), knitted together in a jersey stitch that gives a Tshirt its distinctive soft texture. T-shirts can be decorated with text and/or pictures, and are sometimes used to advertise (see human billboard).
T shirt fashions include styles for men and women, and for all age groups, including baby, youth, and adult sizes. Many youths wear T shirts; they are great protection from the sun and useful for all wears, but the main reason being the fashion.
Tshirts were originally worn as undershirts. Now T shirts are worn frequently as the only piece of clothing on the top half of the body, other than possibly a bra or an undershirt (vest). T shirts have also become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art and even photographs on display. This is where 3NUTS.com comes in to help you with your t shirt printing services.
A T shirt typically extends to the waist. Variants of the Tshirt, like the tank top, A-shirt (with the nickname "wife beater"), muscle shirt, scoop neck, and the V-neck have been developed. Other fashion calls for "tall-T" T-shirts which may extend down to the knees. A 1990s trend in women's clothing involved tight-fitting "cropped" T-shirts that are short enough to reveal the midriff. Another popular trend is wearing a "long-sleeved Tshirt", then putting a short-sleeved T- hirt of a different color over the long-sleeved shirt; this is known as "layering".
1950s T Shirts
In the early 1950s several companies based in Miami, Florida, started to decorate Tshirts with different resort names and various characters. The first company was Tropix Togs, under founder Sam Kantor, in Miami. They were the original licensce for Walt Disney characters that included Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett. Later other companies expanded into the Tshirt printing business that included Sherry Manufacturing Company also based in Miami. Sherry started in 1948 by its owner and founder Quinton Sandler as a screen print scarf business and evolved into one of the largest screen printed resort and licensed apparel companies in the United States.
1960 - 1970 T Shirts
In 1959, plastisol, a more durable and stretchable ink, was invented, allowing much more variety in Tshirt designs.
In the 1960s, the ringer Tshirt appeared and became a staple fashion for youth. The decade also saw the emergence of tie-dyeing and screen-printing on the basic T-shirt. In the late 1960s Richard Ellman, Robert Tree, Bill Kelly, and Stanley Mouse set up the Monster Company in Mill Valley, California, to produce fine art designs expressly for Tshirts.
The most common form of commercial Tshirt decoration is screen printing ( tshirt printing). In screen-printing ( t shirt printing ), a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol or water based inks are applied to the shirt through mesh screens which limits the areas where ink is deposited. In most commercial T shirt printing, the specific colors in the design are used. To achieve a wider color spectrum with a limited number of colors, process printing (using only cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink) or simulated process (using only white, black, red, green, blue, and gold ink) is effective. Process printing is best suited for light colored shirts. Simulated process is best suited for dark colored shirts. Very few companies continue to use water-based inks on their shirts. The majority of other companies that create shirts prefer to use plastisol due to the ability to print on varying colors without the need for color adjustment at the art level.
Specialty inks trend in and out of fashion and include; shimmer, puff, discharge and chino based inks. A metallic foil can be heat pressed and stamped onto any plastisol ink. When combined with shimmer ink, metallics give a mirror like effect wherever the previously screened plastisol ink was applied. Specialty inks are more expensive to purchase as well as screen and tend to appear on garments in boutiques.
Other methods of decoration used on Tshirts include airbrush, applique, embroidery, impressing or embossing and the ironing on of either flock lettering, heat transfers, or dye-sublimation transfers. Laser printers are capable of printing on plain paper using a special toner containing sublimation dyes which can then be permanently heat-transferred to Tshirts.
1980s T Shirts
In the 1980s, thermochromatic dyes were used to produce T shirts that changed colour when subjected to heat. This brand of T-shirt, Global Hypercolour, was a common sight on the streets of the UK for a few years, but has since mostly disappeared. These were very popular in the United States as well in the late 80's among teens. A downside of color-change garments is that the dyes can easily be damaged, especially by washing in warm water, or dye other clothes during washing.
At the turn of the century, designing custom Tshirts online became more popular. Popular websites began to use digital printing (such as Direct to Garment or DTG printing) to allow customers to design their own T-shirts online with no minimum orders. In the beginning, DTG could not print well on dark garments; however, with the help of some online T-Shirt retailers, printer manufacturers such as T-Jet have all but perfected the process, providing consumers with many more printing options.
1990s T Shirts
Since the late 1980s and especially the 1990s, T-shirts with prominent designer-name logos have become popular, especially with teenagers and young adults. These garments allow consumers to flaunt their taste for designer brands in an inexpensive way, in addition to being decorative. Examples of designer T-shirt branding include Calvin Klein, FUBU, Ralph Lauren and The Gap. These examples also include representations of rock bands, among other obscure pop-culture references.
Screen printed T-shirts have been a standard form of product advertising for major consumer products, such as Coca-cola and Mickey Mouse, since the 1970s. However, since the 1990s, it has become common practice for companies of all sizes to produce T-shirts with their corporate logos or messages as part of their overall advertising campaigns.
The early 2000s saw the renewed popularity of T-shirts with slogans and designs with a strong inclination to the humorous and/or ironic. The trend has only increased later in this decade; embraced by celebrities, such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and reflected back on them, too ('Team Aniston').
The political and social statements that T-shirts often display have become, since the 2000s, one of the reasons that they have so deeply permeated different levels of culture and society. The statements also may be found to be offensive, shocking or pornographic to some. Many different organizations have caught on to the statement-making trend, including chain and independent stores, websites, and schools.
A popular phrase on the front of T shirts demonstrating T shirts' popularity among tourists is the humorous phrase "I did _____ and all I got was this lousy Tshirt." another example ot a printed T shirt was "My parents went to Las Vegas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
T-shirt exchange is an activity where people trade their T shirts they are wearing. Some designs specifically write on the shirt "trade with me".
Most of the information and history of this article came from wikipedia.com
Screen Printing technique
A screen is made of a piece of porous, finely woven fabric called mesh stretched over a frame of aluminum or wood. Originally human hair then silk was woven into screen
mesh; currently most mesh is made of man-made materials such as steel, nylon, and polyester. Areas of the screen are blocked off with a non-permeable material to form a stencil, which is a negative of the image to be printed; that is, the open spaces are where the ink will appear.
Screen printing ( t shirt printing ) and the process to print directly to the t shirt.
Screen printing ( t shirt printing ) is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The meshes used for screen printing ( t shirt printing ) on a t shirt were not originally made for screen printing or t shirt printgin but for filtering water. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.
Screen printing ( t shirt printing ) is also a stencil method. Screen printing is not always used for t shirts but for other applications such as signs or cd's. It is also known as "silk screening" or "serigraphy".
The screen is placed atop a substrate such as paper or fabric. Ink is placed on top of the screen, and a fill bar (also known as a floodbar) is used to fill the mesh openings with ink. The operator begins with the fill bar at the rear of the screen and behind a reservoir of ink. The operator lifts the screen to prevent contact with the substrate and then using a slight amount of downward force pulls the fill bar to the front of the screen. This effectively fills the mesh openings with ink and moves the ink
reservoir to the front of the screen. The operator then uses a squeegee (rubber blade) to move the mesh down to the substrate and pushes the squeegee to the rear of the screen. The ink that is in the mesh opening is pumped or squeezed by capillary action to the substrate in a controlled and prescribed amount, i.e. the wet ink deposit is equal to the thickness of the mesh and or stencil. As the squeegee moves
toward the rear of the screen the tension of the mesh pulls the mesh up away from the substrate (called snap-off) leaving the ink upon the substrate surface.
There are three types of screenprinting presses. The 'flat-bed' (probably the most widely used), 'cylinder', and 'rotary'.
Textile items are printed in multi-color designs using a wet on wet technique, while graphic items are allowed to dry between colors that are then printed with another screen and often in a different color.
The screen can be re-used after cleaning. However if the design is no longer needed, then the screen can be "reclaimed", that is cleared of all emulsion and used again. The reclaiming process involves removing the ink from the screen then spraying on stencil remover to remove all emulsion. Stencil removers come in the form of liquids, gels, or powders. The powdered types have to be mixed with water before use, and so can be considered to belong to the liquid category. After applying the stencil remover the emulsion must be washed out using a pressure washer.
Most screens are ready for recoating at this stage, but sometimes screens will have to undergo a further step in the reclaiming process called dehazing. This additional step removes haze or "ghost images" left behind in the screen once the emulsion has been removed. Ghost images tend to faintly outline the open areas of previous stencils, hence the name. They are the result of ink residue trapped in the mesh, often in the knuckles of the mesh, those points where threads overlap.
While the public thinks of garments in conjunction with screenprinting, the technique is used on tens of thousands of items, decals, clock and watch faces, balloons and many more products. The technique has even been adapted for more advanced uses, such as laying down conductors and resistors in multi-layer circuits using thin ceramic layers as the substrate.
T-Shirt Silk Screening
While traditionally people have used silk screening for placing designs carefully on t-shirts, recently new methods have been adopted such as digital printing on shirts using common consumer-quality inkjet printers. Silk screening, however, has remained an attractive source of high quality prints on shirts.
info provided by Wikepidia.com
If you are interested in screen printing with us we have a few options our online t shirt design center or call us at 702 795 3688 to get a quote or to ask any questions about screen printing on t shirts.