The Evolution Of T Shirt Design & Printing by Dan Beer The humble t-shirt has been a fashion staple across the globe since the 1950s, with lots of different designs, colours, styles and motifs coming in and out of fashion as the decades have gone by. In this editorial, I look at the history of t-shirt design and printing, right from the mid 20th century birth of the discipline, up to the present day and the current know-how used.
T-Shirts themselves had been around for lots of decades leading up to the 1950s, however,
T-Shirts being worn as an outerwear fashion statement, either plain or with a decorative design or logo on, was an entirely new proposition in the 1950s. The first company to start decorating and applying designs to
T-Shirts was a company started by Sam Kantor in Miami, Florida, called 'Tropix Togs'. This was chiefly due to a licence they had acquired to produce Disney designs, such as Mickey Mouse and Davey Crockett. The t-shirt itself as a fashion piece gained a great deal of popular exposure in the coursework of this period also, with Marlon Brando wearing a classic in the film A Streetcar Named Desire and James Dean donning a plain white tee underneath his iconic leather jacket in the cult film Rebel Without A Cause.
It was in the coursework of this period that the t-shirt began to become increasingly widespread as an item of clothing suitable for every conceivable purpose. From companies desirous to get their sales and marketing message across, to music fans desirous to show support for their favourite band, to sports fans wanting a simple way to show their support for their beloved team without purchasing the expensive kits.
Historically, the most common technique of putting these designs onto a t-shirt was the 'screen printing' technique. This is where a screen printing machine puts the design that is necessary in to an outline or stencil. Each 'screen' has its own colour and these colours are then pushed through the stencil (using a print press) onto the blank product. This technique is still used today, although various more up to date methods have also come on stream in recent years, which will be discussed below.
There's as well as a variety of 'speciality ink' methods that have gone in and out of fashion over the years. Even metallic foil has been applied to screen printed t shirts, as this can be stamped onto the 'plastisol' based ink that is used in this technique of printing. Also, there has been wide experimentation with various t-shirt dyes. Everyone remembers the t-shirts that used to alter colour according to body heat that were so popular with young people in the 1980s. This effect was achieved with the aid of 'thermo-chromatic' dyes - popular at the time but never used (or seen) today. large issue in regard to these specialist methods was, while they may have appeared great to look at on the rack, often the dyes and appliqués were basically damaged in the wash.
Throughout the 1970's and more so in the 1980s, t-shirts were used as a way for the average person (and the odd celebrity) to express how they felt about a definite issue. These grew to include specific slogans ('Frankie says relax'), to ironic or comic comments, to political positions, to a design showing everyone where you had been on your holidays. The latter led to the classic catchphrase 'been there, done that, got the t shirt' - which entered the common parlance to report any experience of note.
This popularity of the t-shirt as a standalone garment led to expansion of t-shirts in the high-end designer fashion market, with Katherine Hamnett being a pioneer of this in the United Kingdom. These t-shirts, with their large designer logo prints grew in popularity and soon other large name designers from Europe and the US, such as Calvin Klein, The Gap and Yves Saint Laurent, got in on the act.
In recent years the t-shirt has moved with the trends towards a demand for more detailed and bespoke designs, and as a result various other printing methods have become popular. In particular Direct To Garment printing (or DTG for short). In this technique, inks blend together to generate subtle, high quality designs that would not be suited or would not work in the screen-printing technique. Imagine a bigger, much more powerful version of the inkjet printer that sits on your table at home or at work, and you will have some idea of the know-how at work.
of the latest exponents of the DTG technique are a company called Got The T Shirt, an online t-shirt retailer based in the United Kingdom. This company sells t shirts online and to order, from the immense choice on their net site. Particular favourites are the comic t shirts section and the slogan t shirts section.
These days, even the most intricate and detailed design is basically printed onto a t-shirt or other garment with DTG know-how - a far sob from the transfers and screen prints of years gone by.
I hope you have enjoyed this short editorial. It was aimed to give you a brief glimpse in to how the ubiquitous t-shirt has evolved over the years and what processes have brought that about. In the event you have any questions, do not hesitate to get in contact.