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Learning the T-shirt Printing Trade

Friday 17th of August 2007 12:00:53 AM

Since 1971, David Christman has been printing and embroidering T-Shirts in the store he started with his father in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA. Even though screen printing methods may have changed over the years, Christman’s commitment to quality has not.

Even though Christman uses his printing skills on other materials, his first love is graphic design. “We continue to print commercial stuff, like yard signs you see here. Pieces of metal. Realtor signs. Sometimes we print on very specific pieces of metal that may go in a big machine. A big company sends us the metal and it's all cut out like a gauge, kind of like your dashboard with all these holes in it. We don't even know what it'll be used for, but we print on it and send it back,” said Christman.

Christman enjoys the ability to be creative and design original t-shirt designs for his clients. “My mom was a painter, so I naturally inherited some kind of art ability. It was in my blood, so I always wanted to work here. I knew that. When I went to college, I took all fine arts. I didn't take any of the stuff you had to take like accounting or sociology,” he said. He discovered his ability to print T-Shirts after copying an Eagles logo on a shirt he was making for himself.

Over the years, Christman has printed many shirts and has advice on t-shirt printing equipment, particularly T-Shirts prints and why they have a tendency to crack, “They didn't get it dry. Tell you what, here's a trick. This kind that has a rubbery feel, (gently pull it) and if you can see the paint stretch it's cured. If you see it crack, it hasn't been cured. Put it back on the shelf."

(c)Steve Woods, www.sxc.hu