The Perfect Shirt and a Perfect Fit for Your Personality Through Screen Printing

How to Design Your Own Custom T-Shirt

Creative people and creative shirts and outfits. What a potent combination. Many people would rather custom design their own T-shirts than to buy them off the clothing rack. Here are some ideas to get you started.

The Yudu Screen Printing Method

Individuals who love creativity in their clothing choices will appreciate the new Yudu screen printing system. “What can Yudu?” Provo Craft asks rhetorically. It turns out that Provo Craft’s Yudu machine can do quite a lot.

What to Wear

If you’re having trouble finding clothes with logos that appeal to you or artwork that you would actually put on your wall, screen printing is the solution. It’s a way to create logos and prints that are just the way you like them and all your own. The Yudu screen printing system can basically imprint your unique design on any flat surface you want to decorate.

Other Options Besides Custom Screen Print for Shirts

So not only can you decorate t shirts, you can also decorate posters, books, art prints, cards, party invitations, tote bags, school projects and much more. And not only is it doable, it’s also easy. As long as you have a computer, an ink jet printer and some creative ideas you’re good to go.

Nuts and Bolts of Screen Printing

The Yudu screen printing system comes with the Yudu machine, a t shirt, an ink jet transparency, a mesh screen, a squeegee, some black ink, a Platen adhesive sheet, an emulsion sheet, and an instructional DVD and user manual to help you out.

All the components included ensure that your screen printing experience is as easy and painless as possible. Screen printing can get really frustrating when the ink runs, or it fades away, it bleeds through, it doesn’t print neatly, the bottle gets plugged up, it ruins the screen, and the whole process is just one big mess.

Yudu takes care of these problems by making its materials high quality, functional and reusable. The ink is water based so that it washes away easily, and it’s mixed so that the image will come out nice and crisply.

The bottle has a screw off top so that it doesn’t get plugged up and waste ink, and the screens can be used again because the ink doesn’t ruin them. You just won’t get the same results with non Yudu textile or fashion ink, whether it’s in quality or versatility.

A Personal Story about Doing Custom Screen Printing for Shirts

The first time that I ever got custom printed t shirts made was in high school. We were throwing an end of the year battle of the bands, and we wanted to sell some custom screen printed t shirts as a way to celebrate it and remember the event.

We did not do it to make money – we barely expected to be able to cover the costs of printing t shirts in the first place! So we were surprised when the shirts really caught on. Although only a few dozen people bought the custom printed t shirts at the event, people were soon approaching me in school and on the street, asking to get a shirt. By the end of the year, we had had to do another run of them. That is how popular they became!

It wasn't the event that popularized custom screen printing for t shirts, so much as the context and the design. First of all, they were really good looking shirts, but there was more to it than that. You see, the battle of the bands was one of the last events of our senior year.

Even people who hadn't made it to the show wanted to have the shirts as a memento. Years later, I still sometimes see those custom printed t shirts on the street, sometimes worn by people much younger.

Screen Printing Has a Tremendous Effect

That is when I realized the amount of advertising power that custom t shirts have. For some reason, they are really big in our culture. People love to dress down, and having a unique, custom printed t shirt is often the best way to do it.

A lot of companies try to make their custom printed t shirts look serious and dignified, but this is a mistake. When you use the machine we are discussing , or any other screen printing device for that matter, design something special and quirky, something that is uniquely you. After all, you are the one who will be wearing this new outfit, right?

If You Absolutely Must Design Your Own Custom T-Shirt ...

With Provo Craft’s Yudu machine, screen printing hassles are an annoying thing of the past. Don’t be afraid to express yourself. You no longer have to worry about your custom shirt designs not coming out the way you planned them, if you plan to shop for a Yudu screen printing system anytime soon.

Now, all you have to do is go shopping for dozens of new shirts to print. Your only limit is your budget and your screen printing imagination.

Bob Pardue Photography