I was approached by Soumalay Douangmala of Antworx to get some last minute, low run, shirts off press this week and The Pull was happy to help. The shirts were designed for a client of his that wanted a special way to celebrate her dads birthday. Apparently he played high school baseball back in his day, and along with his team, they won states in 1971. So we printed up 8 shirts, with a front and back print, for each of their family members to wear to his birthday party. The front of the shirts featured a Baseball State Champions design and the back featured his name and number.
This design used a lot of halftone dots and small lines to achieve that vintage distressed look. I was a bit worried about it, since I don't use discharge printing methods and opaque white ink is really thick. Typically it requires a really open mesh to get good coverage on dark shirts but to hold the detail I'd need a tighter mesh. I ended up using a 150 mesh count screen and mixed my white ink about 50/50 with a semi transparent white and opaque white. It gave me smooth enough ink to get clean pulls and hold the finer details. I also added some extra water to the ink to keep it from clogging in the small details of the design.
I love doing custom prints for people that have good design and meaning behind them. I think these shirts fall into the "Re-Union Shirts that Don't Suck" category. The 8 shirts ran a total of $18.50 each and were printed using non-toxic water based white ink. Soumalay supplied the shirts, which were 50/50 blend poly cotton Jersey brand t-shirts.
And from what I heard from Soumalay, his client loved them! I'd love to see a group shot guys!
