From idea to ink
Tell the shop what the shirt is for, what it should say, and the feel you are after. The design side builds the rest: layout, lettering, and art drawn print ready. The mockup comes back to you before anything touches a screen, and you tweak it until it is yours.
Rescue jobs welcome
A photo of an old shirt. A screenshot of a Facebook post. A business card from 2009.
That is what real artwork looks like when it arrives here, and turning it into a sharp print file is daily work. Once your art is rebuilt clean, it is on file for every order after.
Design that knows the press
Art drawn by the same shop that prints it comes out printable: right ink counts, right sizes, colors that separate clean on press. That is the quiet advantage of Tshirts And Graphic Designs under one roof, and it is why designs from here do not come back from the press with surprises.
What makes a design printable
A design that prints well is built out of solid shapes with clean edges. Screen printing pushes ink through a stencil, so anything smaller than the mesh can hold simply does not reproduce. Hairline outlines, tiny text and soft glows are where trouble starts.
That does not mean a design has to be plain. It means detail has to be built into shapes rather than into fine lines, which is why good screen printed art has a look of its own.
Separating a design into colors
Before anything prints, the artwork gets pulled apart so each ink has its own layer, and each layer becomes a screen. This is why the color count matters so much to the price, and why it needs to be settled early. It is also where a design can be made cheaper without being made worse.
Often two colors can be dropped by rebuilding a shape or using dots to imply a shade, and most people cannot tell the difference on the finished shirt.
How dots create shading with one ink
A single ink can look like several. Break a solid area into dots, make the dots bigger where it should be darker and smaller where it should be lighter, and the eye reads it as shading. That is a halftone.
It is why a one color design can have depth, and why screen printed art looks printed rather than like a photo stuck on fabric. Leaning into that look is usually better than fighting it.
Mockups, changes, and who owns the art
You see a mockup before anything goes on a press, and nothing prints until you approve it. Small changes at the mockup stage cost nothing but a little time. Changes after the screens are burned are a different matter, because the screens have to be redone.
Settle the wording, the spelling of every name, and the color count at the mockup, and read it twice. A misspelled name is the one mistake that cannot be washed out.
- A graphic designer on site in Falfurrias, not a freelancer in another city
- Original shirt designs built from your idea
- Logo cleanup and redraws into vector art
- Lettering, numbers, and layout done in house
- Mockups to approve before any printing
- Art kept on file for reorders
- Design priced with the run, not as a mystery fee
Questions people ask about Graphic Design and Custom Artwork
I have no design at all, just an idea. Is that enough?
Yes. Most local orders start exactly there. Describe the event, the team, or the joke, and the shop drafts artwork and sends a mockup. You approve it or push back until it is right.
Who owns the design after it is made?
The arrangement is simple and local: your order, your design, kept on file at the shop so reorders are painless. If you want the art files for other uses, ask up front and settle it before the run.
What file should I send?
A vector file is best, meaning ai, eps, pdf or svg, because it can be scaled to any size without going soft. A large sharp image at three hundred dots per inch also works. A screenshot or a logo pulled off a social media page is usually too small to print well.
What if I only have an idea and no artwork?
That is a normal starting point. Describe it, sketch it, or bring a photo of a shirt you liked. The design half is done in house and you will see a mockup before anything is printed.
Can you redraw a logo we already have?
Usually yes. An old logo that only exists as a small blurry image can be rebuilt as a clean file that prints properly and can be reused for years afterward.
Can you copy a design from another shirt?
Not if somebody else owns it. Team marks, brand logos and other artists' work belong to whoever made them. An original design inspired by an idea you have is a different matter, and that is most of what gets drawn here anyway.
Do you do graphic design, or only printing?
Both, and the design half happens here rather than getting farmed out. The shop draws original artwork, redraws worn out logos into clean vector files, and builds print ready layouts. Design is priced with the print run rather than billed as a separate line, so the straight answer is that you get a graphic designer as part of ordering shirts, not as a service sold on its own.
Is there a graphic designer in Falfurrias, or does the work go out of town?
It stays in town. The artwork is drawn at the shop on N. Center by the same people who burn the screens and run the press, which is why designs from here come back printable instead of coming back with surprises.
Alice, Kingsville and Corpus Christi orders are drawn here too and then printed here.
Answer it yourself: custom t-shirts tools, no phone call needed.
New to this? The plain-English guide to ordering walks through what to decide first.
Want numbers before you ask? See the published price chart for custom t-shirts.