You’ve got a logo you love. But will it print well on a shirt?

Not every design that looks great on a screen translates cleanly to fabric. Here’s what to know before you send your file over — and how to set yourself up for the best possible result.

Simpler prints better.

Intricate details, super-thin lines, and tiny text tend to fill in or disappear on fabric, especially on darker garments. The more complex the design, the harder it is to hold every detail through the print process. Clean, bold shapes are your friend.

Color count affects your price.

Screen printing is done one color at a time. A two-color logo is more affordable than a six-color logo. If your brand colors are complex, it’s worth having a version of your logo simplified to two or three colors for apparel use — you get a sharp print and keep costs manageable.

Contrast is everything on dark shirts.

White ink on a black shirt pops. Light gray on dark gray? It disappears. Before you submit your design, look at how it reads against the shirt color you’re planning. High contrast = sharp, visible print.

Vector files are the gold standard.

If you have a .ai, .eps, or .svg file of your logo, that’s what we want. Vector files can be scaled to any size without losing quality. Raster files — .jpg, .png, .pdf saved from a website — have a fixed resolution and can look pixelated or blurry when enlarged. If you only have a raster file, we can often work with it, but higher resolution is always better.

Gradients and photo-realistic images are a different conversation.

Traditional screen printing doesn’t love gradients or photographic images. These can be done with a technique called simulated process printing, but it’s more involved and costs more. If your logo has fades or photographic elements, let us know upfront and we’ll talk through options.

Not sure if your logo is print-ready?

Send it over. At Sunshine State Threads, we review every design before we run it. We’ll let you know if anything needs to be adjusted — and we can help clean up or prep files if needed. No surprises on the back end.