Q. I am a current student at UTA, and I am interested in custom printing T-shirts. Can you give me idea about how to proceed?

There are two options for printing Tshirts in the FabLab: Heat-Transfer Vinyl and Screenprinting.

For both workflows, you’ll need to have a vector file of your desired logo with each color separated onto a different layer (we can help you translate your bitmap image into a vector and show you how to create an appropriate layer structure : )

Heat-Transfer requires making an individual vinyl cut of each layer for every shirt - depending on the complexity of the logo, the time spent removing the unwanted portions of vinyl can really start to add up. It also tends to be costlier at scale. Heat-Transfer Vinyl is $0.30 per 15”-wide linear inch. For one-of-a-kind or small runs of shirts, HTV can be a great option, and multiple color prints are pretty straightforward.

For more durable shirts and for larger runs of shirts, screenprinting is often a better option.
You’ll still make a vinyl cut for each color (but with sign vinyl, which is cheaper - $0.25 per 23”-wide linear inch), but these stickers will be applied to the back of a screen to be used as a stencil for the application of water-based fabric ink ($0.05 per gram). The press we designed and built in the FabLab (lovingly named Screeny McScreenpress) is a 4-color press.

Come into the lab anytime we’re open to learn more!